The channel through Syria obtained then a preference for all the eastern part of the empire; and owing to some change, either in the politics or religion of the Persians, when conquered by the Parthians, they became willing to permit them the navigation of the Euphrates, which had long been shut up.

This continued to be the state of matters, particularly after the fall of the western empire, when barbarians got possession of all that part of Europe that used to be supplied with East India produce by the way of Alexandria.  It continued till the middle of the seventh century of the Christian aera, when the Mahometan religion was established from the westernmost part of Africa to the confines of the Chinese empire; and as the followers of that religion were unfriendly to commerce, and none could be carried on with India that did not pass through their country, it was nearly annihilated, and was almost wholly confined to the caravans of pilgrims, who, going to visit Jerusalem and Mecca, under the cloak of religious zeal, exchanged the various articles of traffic which they had collected in their different countries and on their journey.

—–­ {49} This passage, from the straits of Babelmandel to the point of the peninsula of India, saved a very long and dangerous navigation by the coast.  It is almost due east, and with the advantage of being much shorter, and having a fair wind, was next to the discovery of the passage of the Cape of Good Hope, the greatest discovery for shortening the route to India.  This was discovered during the time that Egypt was a Roman province. -=-

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Such were the vicissitudes, changes, and variations of this commerce in early periods, and during the middle ages; and, when we come to treat of the same within the last two centuries, we shall find it equally liable to alteration.

Of all the spots on the face of the earth that have undergone revolution and ruin, they that are now the most completely sunk below their natural level, are those which were formerly the highest above it.

We have left uninterrupted the detail of the commercial greatness of those places, in order not to break the narrative; but as cities cannot be great without connection, it is necessary to notice, that Marseilles in France, and Carthagena, and some other places on the coast of Spain, were those, by which eastern luxuries came into Europe from Alexandria and Tyre.  The Carthaginians, a Tyrian colony, had the produce from Tyre, and from Rhinocolura, and supplied Spain and the western portion of Africa; but when Alexandria arose, Carthage began to fall.  Alexandria, situated near to it on the same coast, was a rival, not a friend, as Tyre had been, and the first Punic war, in which the pride of that republic had involved it with Rome, following soon after, hastened its decline. {50}

The nations of Greece, which had risen to power and wealth, owed these more to their superiority in mind, in learning, and the fine arts, than to any attention they ever paid to commerce; they had begun by being the most barbarous of all the people in that part of the globe, and got their first knowledge from the Egyptians, whom they long considered as their superiors in science, as the Romans afterwards did the Greeks; but when the barbarians broke down the western empire, learning as well as commerce was very soon extinguished.