EARLY TRADE IN BLACK AND RED CORAL 239 



But there seem to have been at least two other routes in 

 early times. In the first century B.C. the Roman navigator 

 Hippalus discovered the sea route from Aden across the 

 Arabian Sea to the markets of India, by which the mercantile 

 ships were able to avoid conflict with the traders from the 

 Persian Gulf. The author of the Peripliis of the Erythraean 

 Sea, who wrote about a.d. 60, described this new sea route, 

 and told the merchants that there was a demand for coral 

 at Cana (S. Arabia), at Barbaricum (at the mouth of the 

 Indus), at Ozene ( = U]jain on the Malwa coast), and at 

 Bacare ( = Porakad on the Malabar coast) ; and it was 

 probably by this route that a great deal of coral passed by 

 way of the Ganges to Thibet and China. 



But the fact that there was already a demand for coral 

 in these places in India at this period of history shows that 

 there must have been an earlier trade in it by another route. 

 This trade was probably conducted b}^ Moors and Arabs 

 from the fisheries of Morocco across Syria, through Mesopo- 

 tamia, and by way of the river Euphrates to the Persian 

 Gulf. 



There are some reasons for believing that in early times 

 the Arab merchants carried on a trade with Africa from Aden 

 by way of an overland route to the LTpper Nile, and it is 

 probable that the demand for coral at Cana (in S. Arabia) 

 mentioned in the Pen'pliis was to some extent due to its value 

 as an article of trade with negro and negroid inhabitants of 

 that country. 1 



The records of the history of the dark-skinned inhabitants 

 of the African continent begin in comparatively modern 

 times, and it is impossible to state even approximately 

 when the negroes first became acquainted with red coral. 

 All that can be said is that, judging from the value they set 

 upon it a few hundred years ago, when the records begin, 



^ It might be expected that the words used by the different races for 

 coral might help in the determination of these trade routes, but so far as 

 I can judge they do not. The following is a list of the names I have been 

 able to collect : Latin, Corallium ; Arabic, Marjan, or a rarer word said 

 to be derived from the Persian, Bussadh ; Armenian, Bust ; Hebrew, 

 Peninim ; Sanskrit, Pravala ; Burmese, Tada ; Thibetan, Chiru, or, in 

 addressing the higher classes, Guchi ; Chinese, Shanhu ; Japanese, Sango ; 

 Malay, Sanhosu. 



