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 to the care of those who had charge of the caravan, and who had dangers even greater to encounter than the perils of the sea. Nor was their responsibility limited to merchandise. All classes, as well as merchants, availed themselves of these caravans, so that arrangements had to be made on a large scale, and often for months before the caravan started, for the means of conveyance and for the requisite supply of water and provisions.

Besides Petra and Palmyra, the cities of Sardes, Babylon, Gerrha, Damascus, and Susa were all peculiarly well situated for carrying on a large inland commerce; and these places, with Thebes and Memphis, were as famous in their day as great commercial entrepôts, as London, Liverpool, Glasgow, New York, Marseilles, or Hamburg are in our own time. At the period to which we now refer, Arabia, including Asia Minor, and the northern portion of Africa, may be said to have been divided into four great caravan routes, with numerous tributaries. The first embraced the traffic between Egypt and Palestine; the second extended from the coast of Syria, including the trade of Phœnicia with Babylon and Assyria, through the plains of Mesopotamia to the north, and along the shores of the Red Sea to the south; the third traversed Asia Minor to the north; and the fourth route lay through Africa, with Thebes as its centre, and the Nile and ports of the Red Sea as its outlets.

But Arabia, of all countries, was the most frequented by caravans. From Petra, where vast numbers of travellers met, an important and lucrative trade was carried on with Yemen and the fertile districts of the south, especially with that portion of