Page:Arrian's Voyage Round the Euxine Sea Translated.djvu/112

108 rivers of Africa, made Colchis be regarded as the Gold Coat of that early period.

The manners however of thoe remote ages oblige us to conider this expedition as rather predatory than commercial.

The trade carried on upon the Euxine ea may be regarded in two points of view, one repecting its own produce, and that of the countries bordering on it; the other repecting it as a means of conveying the produce of other countries, and particularly that of the Eat Indies, to Europe.

If we look at this ea in a map of the world, it appears happily ituated for commerce of every kind, forming an eay communication between Europe and the north-eat parts of Aia, enjoying a moderate climate, free from the hurricanes, that infetthe Southern eas, and the almot perpetual torms that ditres navigation in the Northern ocean. It poees numerous ports; many navigable rivers flow into it; it abounds with large fih, to a degree unknown in other places; and the countries bordering on it, at leat the whole extent of the Southern coat, are exuberant in the produce of every material for hip-building, as timber, pitch, hemp, iron, together with great plenty of proviions. Thee advantages caued it, in early times, to be a ea of great naval refort. Both the European and the Aiatic Greeks founded colonies on its hores, both to the north-wet and to the eat of the Thracian Boporus." Miletus,