Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/186

 *nomers nor navigators of China have varied much from the first rude notions entertained among mankind, that the whole earth was one flat surface, in the middle of which the Chinese took for granted that their own empire was situated, thence emphatically styled by them, the 'empire of the middle;' all other countries surrounding it being, in their estimation, comparatively small, and lying towards the edge, or margin of the earth, beyond which all must be a precipitate and dreadful void."

With the conquests of Alexander commence our first really historical knowledge of India. For, if Alexander left behind him, at his premature death, the fame of a mighty conqueror, he no less deserves that of a great civilizer, by the wisdom he displayed in opening up new channels of commercial intercourse. In the foundation of Alexandria ( 332) he showed how keenly he was alive to the value of the commerce between Europe and the East, while he was, at the same time, the first to lay down the principle that the command of the sea secures the possession of the land; and to carry that principle into practice, by raising his fleets from insignificance until they held dominion over all waters accessible to them. Alexander saw that the extension of the commercial intercourse of his people would do more to consolidate his power than military conquest; hence he had the wisdom to establish in the path of his conquests, ports, cities, and institutions, with which his name has been, and will be, imperishably associated. Although there will always be some