Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/168

 and Leuke Kome, to the coast of Africa, although only in small quantities. Plated silver, and flint glass, or crystal, were shipped to a considerable extent; while corn from Egypt constituted one of the most bulky articles of export to the more populous of the places we have named.

The merchants of Alexandria, likewise, carried on an extensive and valuable commerce with various ports in Arabia, especially with Moosa, at the entrance to the Red Sea, a place believed to have had a very ancient trade with India. Moosa also imported large quantities of coffee from Africa, and, mixing it with the coffee of Arabia, sold the adulterated article as the produce of the latter country. Its imports from Egypt consisted, among other manufactures, of various descriptions of cloths, and of clothes made up after the Arabian fashion, with sleeves plain and embroidered. Its merchants gave in exchange the produce of their own country, and that of India, imported in their own vessels from Baroach.

There are few lands more extolled in ancient history for their natural richness, both as regards its mines and the productiveness of its soil, than Yemen, or Arabia Felix, the country of the Queen of Sheba, of which Moosa was the chief port. Though separated from India by an open sea, it was yet intimately connected with it by nature; a sky of great serenity enabling its mariners to make full use of the stars as their guides, and thus sparing them the labour and anxiety of slowly creeping along the coast, as was elsewhere necessary. Arabia was above all others the native country of frankincense, of myrrh, and of other aromcati perfumes, productions then held in such