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 Arabians, as the natives of Arabia are known to have been from remote times settled on the western shores of India. Indeed, we learn the same fact from the historian of Vasco de Gama's celebrated voyage, who speaks of the vast number of Arabians whom the Portuguese found settled at Calicut, and engaged in commercial and maritime occupations.

The products of India were at no period sought after with greater avidity than when Rome became mistress of the world. Tyre, in the plenitude of her power, or Babylon in her greatest magnificence, were, compared with Rome, moderate in their expenditure upon luxuries. It was this extravagance which led Pliny to make the complaint to which we have just referred, of the drain of precious metals to the East; in itself just, because they were sent to purchase articles of luxury as expensive as they were superfluous, instead of necessaries and raw materials capable of conversion for the wants of the people, or of re-exportation to other countries. Enriched by the spoil and tribute of nearly every portion of the then known world, the inhabitants of Rome had acquired a taste for every kind of luxury, and had resolved to obtain it, regardless of the cost. Whatever was rare commanded fabulous prices. To supply their demands, new and extraordinary efforts became necessary to obtain from the East the articles they required. Silks, precious stones, and pearls, were eagerly sought after, but spices and aromatics were even greater objects of solicitude. Fortunes expended upon frankincense had, they thought, the combined effect of raising them in the estimation of their neighbours, and of securing the favour and