Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/49

 CHAPTER III.

From the earliest times, the products of Tamilakam appear to have attracted the merchants of distant lands. It was most probably from Tamilakam that, during the reign of Solomon (about B. c. 1000) “once in every three years, the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes and peacocks.” The names of the last two objects Kapim and Tukim as found in the Hebrew Bible are the same as those still used in Tamil: i.e., Kavi and Thokai. Subsequently the Arabs and Greeks appear to have kept up the trade with Tamilikam. The Greek names for rice (Oryza), ginger (Zingiber), and cinnamon (Karpion) are almost identical with their Tamil names, Arisi, Inchiver and Karuva, and clearly indicate that Greek merchants conveyed these articles and their names to Europe from the Tamil-land. The Egyptian Greeks under the Ptolemies carried on an extensive trade in Indian commodities and Alexandria became, at an early period, the chief emporium of this lucrative commerce. Ships of small size which cautiously sailed along the coast carried the merchandise to ports on the Red Sea, and thence it was taken by caravans, to the nearest point on the River Nile, and by boats down the river to Alexandria. “I found” says Strabo (19 A. D.) “that about one hundred and twenty ships sail from Myos-Hermos (a port on the Red Sea) to India.” About this time a Greek named Hippalos, acting on information received probably from Arab on Hindu merchants, boldly stood out to sea, from Cape Fartak in Arabia, and sailing with the south-west monsoon trade winds found a direct route to the pepper bearing country in Tamilakam. Thenceforward the trade with Tamilakam increased considerably. The Romans who conquered Egypt were not slow to take advantage of the profitable trade with Tamilakam.

Pliny describes as follows the navigation to India “as it had been recently discovered and was practised in his day.”

“Afterwards it was found the safest course to proceed direct from the promontory of Syagrus in Arabia (Cape Fartak) to