AND COMMERCIAL ROUTES. 153 



nominal price of Eastern produce is now even less than it 

 was in the Middle Ages. Trade, now unfettered and un- 

 checked, has brought abundance from these remote regions. 

 Spices once worth half their weight in silver, are within the 

 reach of millions, whose ancestors, with greater necessities 

 upon them, were debarred from the use of such conveniences, 

 under the machinery by which medieval commerce was carried 

 on. It is possible, if the dream of the Pharaohs and Ptolemys 

 be realised in these our times, that Aden may again become 

 the great port of Eastern traffic, and the Red Sea being united 

 with the waters of the Mediterranean, that the economical 

 importance of the Cape passage may diminish, though less 

 completely than that of the long overland routes from Bagdad 

 to Licia or Trebizond. 



The traditions of the ancient greatness possessed by Eastern 

 Europe still survive in the diplomatic importance assigned to 

 those cities which were once the keys of European commerce 

 with the East. What if hereafter, in some degree at least, 

 this part of the world revive ; its extinct prosperity be recalled 

 under happier auspices; the freedom of Italy be followed by 

 the renovation of the Greek empire ; and the repeopling of 

 these ancient sites of civilisation, .which have lain waste so 

 long, be completely effected ? 





