Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/42

 8 THE CLOSING OF THE OLD TRADE PATHS mercantile epic of Israel. The record of the rare and costly products with which it adorned Jerusalem, and of the transit duties which it yielded to the king, reads like a psalm rather than a trade catalogue. To some of those products, although bought up in the inter- mediate marts of the Euphrates valley, an Indian origin is plausibly ascribed the ivory of which Solomon " made a great throne," his " precious stones, " and " three hundred shields of beaten gold," the " traffic of the spice-merchants," the " apes and peacocks " of his pleasure gardens, and, probably, the sandalwood pillars " for the House of the Lord." From the Egyp- tian side the Hebrew king received linen yarn, horses, and a royal bride. The Song of Solomon, supposed by some commentators to celebrate his nuptials with Pha- raoh's daughter, breathes the poetry of the caravan route, with its advancing clouds of dust, and its guards posted at night, every man " with his sword upon his thigh." " Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness, Like pillars of smoke ? Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, With all powders of the merchant." The recollections of the Egypto-Syrian trade, its spices, pigments, and precious stones, survived in the Hebrew memory long after the possession of the route had passed from the nation. " Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah? " wrote Isaiah in a dark period of his race. If the theocratic thesis of Jewish history sometimes obscures its political