Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/369

 were then four ports," remarks Strabo, "at which voyagers generally crossed from the mainland to the island, at the mouths respectively of the river Rhône, the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne; but the travellers who crossed from the country about the Rhine did not set sail from the mouth of that river, preferring to pass through the Morini and to embark at its port of Boulogne."

The ordinary traffic of those times was conveyed either on the backs of mules or horses, across Gaul, as was the case with tin, or by the rivers of that country: indeed, for a long period the merchant vessels of Britain were not of a construction to brave the heavy gales and stormy seas of the rude Atlantic, while Gaul was a country peculiarly favoured in the conveniences it afforded for such an inland water transit. Everywhere intersected by navigable rivers running in very opposite directions, goods could be carried between the Mediterranean and the English Channel, or the shores of the Atlantic, with little assistance of land carriage. From Narbo, an ancient commercial port of first-class importance already noticed, goods were carried a few miles overland and re-shipped on the Garonne, which carried them to Burdigala (Bordeaux). In the same way the Loire, the Seine, and the Rhine afforded navigable facilities into the very heart of the country, while all of them were easily connected with the Rhône or its great navigable branches, thus completing the inland water-carriage between the Mediterranean and the western and northern shores of Gaul.

British goods destined for Rome, or for any port of