Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/30

2 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE in developing the prosperity of Egypt, spared no pains to monopolize the commercial navigation of the Bed Sea. They sent more than one naval expedition against the southwest coast of Arabia with the object of seiz- ing Aden (then, as now, a most important station) and ADEN FROM THE ARAB CEMETERY. of wresting the Indian trade from the hands of the Arabs. In fact, they attempted, though unsuccessfully, to acquire very much the same position in those waters as that which the English have at last succeeded in establishing after an interval of sixteen centuries. Al- though the Roman navy was not strong enough to dis- lodge the Arabs, yet the direct European maritime traf-