Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/204

 188 COMMERCE WITH India, makes no mention whatever of those two spices. The legitimate inference to be drawn from this is, that, down to the period in question, no in- tercourse existed between the land of the Hindus and the country of spices ; for I conclude that, had such intercourse existed, commodities so uniform- ly in request in every age of their history, among strangers of every climate and region, must have been imported by the Hindus, — found in their mar- kets, and — circulated among the civilized nations of the west. Little more than a century after the age of the Periplus, or from I7G to 180, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, when associated with his son Commodus, the clove is mentioned for the first time as an article of importation from the East, in the famous Roman law of the Digest, in which every article imported at the custom-house of Alex- andria is particularly specified. From this time downwards, the clove and nutmeg are always men- tioned as the most prized of the commodities of India. At that time, therefore, or towards the termination of the second century of our era, it is to be concluded, that an intercourse between the Hindus and the country of spices must inevitably have existed. It is plain, therefore, that that in- tercourse must have commenced, in the century which was just elapsing. It is to be supposed, that the Hindus had an in- tercourse with the western portion of the Archipela-