Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/213

 the early routes, already described, to the river Oxus, or directly to the Caspian, and thence to Constantinople, which became, even more than it had hitherto been, the great centre of European commerce. The intercourse between Constantinople and China was much more difficult and dangerous; as in this case the trader had to proceed to the western provinces of the Chinese empire, and, having purchased his silk, to convey it by caravans, for an average of ninety days, to the banks of the Oxus, and along that stream to the Caspian; thence he followed the course of the river Cyrus, as far it was navigable, and, after a five days' march overland, found his way to the Euxine, by the river Phasis.

Such were the different means of conducting the commercial intercourse between Europe and the East in ancient times, and such they practically continued, amid various minor changes and through many wars and vicissitudes, up to the period when Vasco de Gama discovered the new and better way to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. We shall hereafter glance at the maritime commerce of India from the ninth century up to the time when the Portuguese landed on its shores, with some notices of the celebrated travels of Marco Polo, of the expulsion of the Arabians from its trade, and of the decline of the vast influence so long exercised by the Moors; but in the meantime we must endeavour to trace the maritime commerce of Rome, and especially of the Italian Republics, which afterwards exercised more influence in commercial affairs than the "mistress of the world" had done during her most prosperous days.