merchandise, decreeing that goods only to the value of 200,000 florins might pass untaxed through their city; all the rest being charged two _soldi_ the _lira_--_i.e._, at the rate of 10 per cent. This left the Florentines no choice save to make war, or find some mode of avoiding the Pisan highway. To prove that their trade was not altogether at the mercy of Pisa, they preferred the second alternative. By making treaty with the Siennese, they obtained the concession of Porto Talamone, and at great expense, and in the teeth of many difficulties, finally succeeded in making it a vast emporium for their wares. The road to Talamone was long and inconvenient; but the Pisans, soon perceiving that they had done greater damage to themselves than to Florence, and that although they might inflict annoyance on the latter, there was no hope of destroying its trade, were therefore presently reduced to permit the free passage of merchandise. Accordingly the Florentines felt braced to more extensive enterprise in the Levant.[357] The Egyptian route was the easiest and most direct for trading purposes; but sultan and califs barred the road to Christians. The Venetians alone, from having concluded treaties, it was said, "in the holy name of God and Mahomet," had made some way in that country to the jealous exclusion of all other Italians, who therefore usually travelled by Constantinople and the Black Sea, where they, and more especially the Genoese, had founded some populous and flourishing cities. Farther on, by the Sea of Azoff, a mile or so from the mouth of the Don, stood the town of Tana (Azov), a great business centre for traders from Russia, Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Mogul, and Southern China; and the chief place of exchange for Eastern and Western products. The Italians brought silk or woollen fabrics, oil, wine, pitch, tar, and common metals, and bartered them for precious stones, pearls, gold, spices, sweetmeats, sugar, Eastern tissues of silk, wool, or cotton, raw silk, goatskins, dye-woods, and likewise for Eastern slaves of either sex, who were to be seen in Italy down to the end of the fifteenth century.[358] All this varied commerce, originally started by Amalfi and other southern states, was afterwards carried on by the Venetians, Genoese, and Pisans. The argosies of those republics traversed all parts of the Archipelago, the Bosphorus, and the Black Sea. Italian was spoken in all the harbours of the East, where, besides Italian banks, workshops, and factories, there were cities founded and inhabited solely by Italians, with buildings in the Genoese or Venetian style, but where Italian, and especially Venetian, architecture became modified by Oriental influences. A great number of Genoese were settled in those parts. To give some idea of the naval strength of Venice, it will be enough to say that during the Crusade of 1202 that Republic equipped a fleet able to convey 4,500 horsemen, 9,000 squires, 30,000 infantry, and stores for nine months.