with indulgence, as it was a country very remote, and few persons had visited it; and even with regard to Arabia Felix, he says, that the knowledge of the Romans commenced with the expedition of his friend AElius Gallus into that country;—­facts not very consistent with his statement that 120 ships had sailed in six or seven years to India:  secondly, he expressly mentions, that formerly scarcely twenty ships dared to navigate the Red Sea, so far as to shew themselves beyond the straits; but we can hardly suppose that skill, enterprize, and knowledge, had increased so rapidly as to extend within a very few years navigation, not merely beyond the straits, but even to India; we say a few years, for certainly, at the time when the Romans conquered Egypt, the straits were not usually passed:  lastly, the name India was used so vaguely by the ancients, even by Strabo occasionally, that it is not improbable he meant by it, merely the coast of Arabia, beyond the straits.  It is well asked by Dr. Vincent, in reference to this account of Strabo, might not that geographer, from knowing the ships brought home Indian commodities, have supposed that they sailed to India, when in reality they went no farther than Hadramant, in Arabia, or Mosullon, on the coast of Africa, where they found the produce of India?

It is not, however, meant to be denied that a few vessels, in the time of Ptolemies, reached some part of India from the Red Sea, by coasting all the way.  The author of the Periplus of the Red Sea, informs us that, before the discovery of the monsoon, by Hippalus, small vessels had made a coasting voyage from Cana, in Arabia, to the Indies.  But these irregular and trifling voyages are deserving of little consideration, and do not militate against the position we have laid down and endeavoured to prove, that in the time of the Ptolemies the commerce of Egypt was confined within the limits of the Red Sea, partly from the want of skill and enterprize, and from the dangers that were supposed to exist beyond the straits, but principally because the commodities of India could be procured in the ports of Sabaea.

Many instances have already been given of the patronage which the Ptolemies bestowed on commerce, of the facilities and advantages they afforded, and of the benefits which the science of geography derived from the library and observatory of Alexandria:  every instrument which could facilitate the study of astronomy was purchased by the Ptolemies and placed in that observatory, for they were fully aware of the dependency of a full and accurate knowledge of geography, as a science, on a full and accurate knowledge of astronomy.  With respect to commerce, the advancement of which, may fairly be supposed to have had some weight in their patronage of these sciences, they encouraged it as much as possible to centre in Alexandria, and with citizens of Egypt, by making it a standing law of the country, that no goods should pass through the capital, either to India or Europe, without the intervention of an Alexandrian factor, and that even when foreign merchants resided there, they should employ the same agency.  The roads and canals they formed, and the care they took to keep the Red Sea free from pirates, are further proofs of their regard for commerce.