Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/75

1868.] the East India trade, Great Britain has waded through blood and fire. The immense loss of life, the cruelties practised in her wars with the natives of India, will perhaps never be fully known to history. If we obtain possession of the vast trade of the Indies, it will not be by rapine or murder, but by the energy of the American people. With the completion of the Pacific railroad, the world will undergo a commercial and financial revolution. British produce can then be taxed sufficiently to pay off all the Alabama claims, without shedding blood or adding, by strife, millions to our national debt.

The Romans, Venetians, Genoese, Portuguese, and Dutch, have at different times contended for and enjoyed the East India trade, as each successively advanced in wealth and influence. But our success will be permanent, because the shortest route to India lies through our domain. One possibility, however, remains to Great Britain, in order to compete with us—the stupendous project of building a railroad through the wilderness of British America, from the mouth of Frazer River to Lake Superior, a distance of 1,980 miles in a straight line.

Perhaps a brief outline of the struggles that have taken place to obtain and hold possession of the trade with the Indies, may most vividly show its intrinsic importance. Even in the days of King Solomon we find that the Phoenicians of his fleets, who were the great maritime people of that period, brought "gold, silver, and ivory," from India, not omitting also to bring "apes and peacocks." It is likely enough that the gold and ivory which adorned the temple of Solomon was all brought from India by the way of the Red Sea and the Isthmus of Suez—the same route that the French are now trying to make practicable, in the hope of regaining that prominent footing in India, which they held in the middle of the last century, before being driven out by the English. Herodotus, "the Father of History," the truth of whose statements have been verified in the lapse of centuries, more than four hundred years before Christ pronounced India the richest country on the face of the earth. The India of Herodotus was no doubt a much smaller area than is now comprehended under that term, it now including Hindostan, China, Japan, Farther India, Malaisia, etc. From all these countries rich products will be brought through our territory, when our ocean steamers and clipper ships start from the great entrepôt, San Francisco, to compete with England for the commerce of the ocean.

The close proximity of Europe to India, by way of the Red Sea and Isthmus of Suez, naturally suggests that this route would be the best and shortest. There are, however, many difficulties in the way which are not apparent to a casual observer. It can never successfully compete with our overland route through San Francisco. Even in the time of the Ptolemies, Egypt became a prominent point of communication with India, via the Red Sea, but Egypt never controlled the East India trade. The Romans, A. D. 50, found a shorter route to India by taking advantage of the south-west monsoon. Pliny has fully described this route, and states that from this circumstance Rome was yearly drained of five hundred and fifty millions of sesterces, equal to seven millions of dollars, in exchange for articles that sold for one hundred times their prime cost. The great value of this sum in those days shows that a very extensive commerce was carried on with India through that route.

After the fall of the Roman and Greek empires, the Mussulmans obtained the monopoly of the India trade, and their wealth and prosperity so increased that they threatened the subjugation of Europe. They prevented the Christians from obtaining any share in the rich harvest that had previously been open to