656 ON THE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



would ensue, when Selim won the battles of Cairo and of the 

 Pyramids. 



The turn of Western Europe came. During the period in 

 which the Roman empire and the savage imitations of it were 

 destroying ancient civilisation in the West as well as in the 

 East, opulence had shifted from Asia Minor to Italy. Subse- 

 quently, Portugal opened a new way to India, and for a time had 

 a trade and an empire there. Fortunately for the Dutch, Philip 

 the Second of Spain seized the throne of Portugal in 1580, and 

 his Eastern conquests became prize of war to those whom his 

 fanatical bigotry drove into revolt, and to an almost desperate 

 attempt at independence. A century later, and the English 

 became the rivals of the Dutch. In our own days, the route 

 to the East, which the conquests of Selim closed, has been 

 reopened in a more effectual and permanent manner by French 

 enterprise, and has become, after the lapse of three centuries 

 and a-half, the water-way of commerce with India. 



The effect of the conquest of Egypt will be curiously illus- 

 trated by the facts contained in the tables at the conclusion of 

 this chapter. If my reader will consult the annual prices, or 

 still more conveniently the decennial averages, he may notice 

 that during the twenty years, 1521-1540, a marked rise takes 

 place in all articles of Eastern produce. The progress of the 

 Turkish arms in Western Asia and Eastern Europe had un- 

 doubtedly, as it dammed up the old channels of trade and 

 drove commerce into the only course left to it through Egypt, 

 heightened the price of that produce continuously for fifty 

 years and more. But the sharpest rise takes place after 1520. 

 The rise is about 35 per cent, on pepper, over 40 per cent, on 

 cloves, over 90 per cent, on mace, over 25 per cent, on cinna- 

 mon and on dates, then produced entirely in Egypt. 



The case of sugar is more striking still. In the latter part 

 of the fourteenth century sugar was worth iqs. the dozen 

 pounds. It became still dearer in the first half of the fifteenth 

 century. The entries indeed are very few, for the price, zjs. 

 the dozen, was almost prohibitive, and two out of the three 



