Page:The Post Office of India and its story.djvu/149

 CHAPTER XIII

VERLAND trade between Europe and India has existed from the earliest times and was fully developed during the Roman Empire. After the overthrow of the Western Empire by Odoacer in 476 and during the struggles with the Persians and Saracens the overland trade with the East languished until the consolidation of the Saracenic power at Damascus, Cairo and Bagdad. It was again thrown into disorder by the ascendancy of the Turkish Guard at Bagdad, and did not revive until the thirteenth century, when, as the result of the Crusades, Venice and Genoa became the great emporia for Eastern spices, drugs and silks. The merchandise came by land to the ports of the Levant and the Black Sea, but the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1483 drove the traffic to Alexandria, which continued to be the mart for Eastern wares until the discovery of the Cape route to India altered the whole conditions of trade.

The first historical attempt to reach England from India by the overland route was made in 1777 when Lord Pigot, Governor of Madras, was placed in confinement by his own Council. Both parties attempted to avoid loss of time in representing their case to the Board of Directors by despatching messengers up the Red Sea and across Egypt. The Council's messenger, Captain