Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/85

 important. Placed advantageously so as to make available both the Euphrates and Tigris, Babylon secured easy communication with the interior of Asia, and was able, therefore, to supply all the surrounding populations with the produce of the far East. She soon became what the prophet calls her, "a land of traffic—a city of merchants," partly, no doubt, because the navigation of the Persian Gulf presented fewer difficulties and dangers than that of the Red Sea, while her traders were largely aided by the Phœnician settlement of Tylos among the Bahrein Islands and by Gerrha, a port on the western shores of the Persian Gulf.

In Babylon itself there were manufactories of cotton and linen, which, with the maritime imports not required for the use of the great city, were carried by water as far as Thapsacus and thence distributed by caravans all over Asia.

Gerrha was a place of large trade, and its merchants and ship-owners are probably as old as any recorded in history, for they were not merely the factors for the precious commodities of Asia and Europe, but, in conjunction with the Midianites and Edomites, conducted the first caravans on record. From the remotest times they carried on an extensive trade with the Phœnicians in spices and aromatics, and with Babylon in mineral salt and cotton, which the island of Tylos produced in great abundance. In-*