i^6 A. D. 732. 



impoftor (or of the devil), pagans, and enemies of God *, while they 

 on the other hand abhorred the Chriftians as idolaters and enemies of 

 God, was an almoft infuperable bar to commercial intercourfe. But 

 the mutual alienation produced little or no inconvenience to the Sara- 

 cens, who found an ample fcope for commercial enterprife within the 

 vafl extent of their own dominions. The fcanty fupply of Oriental goods 

 from the fairs of Jerufalem, and perhaps a few other privileged places, 

 being very inadequate to the demand, fome merchants were tempted 

 by the increafed price to traverfe the vafl extent of Afia in a latitude 

 beyond the northern boundary of the Saracen power, and to import by 

 caravans the filks of China, and the valuable fpices of India, which, 

 with the expenfe and rifk of fuch a land carriage, muft have coft a moft 

 enormous price, when they reached Conftantinople, where they were, 

 notwithftanding, eagerly purchafed by the luxurious and wealthy cour- 

 tiers, whofe demands for filks the manufactures of Greece were not 

 capable of fupplying to their full extent. 



Next to thofe of Conflantinople, the citizens of Venice appear to 

 have been in this age the moft diftinguifhed among the Chriftians of 

 Europe for commercial efforts. The origin and dawning profperity of 

 this city have been already noticed. The total want of territory di- 

 reded their attention and their hopes to the fea, which was at once 

 their frontier, their fortification, and the only field to be ploughed by 

 their induftry. The perpetual wars, and the rapid fucceffion of con- 

 querors, which had for feveral ages convulfed Italy, drove into the 

 rifing city a gradual and conftant accellion of free-fpirited, induftrious, 

 and wealthy, inhabitants, the trueft fource of the profperity of any 

 ftate. Their vefTels now ventured beyond the limits of the Adriatic 

 gulf; they doubled the fouthern extremity of Greece, and made voyages 

 to Conflantinople and other places. They carried home valuable car- 

 goes of filks, and all the rich produce of the Eaft, the magnificent 

 purple drapery of Tyre, and the furs of ermines and other northern 

 animals ; all which they fold with prodigious profit to the nations of 

 the north and weft parts of Europe. It is a melancholy confideration, 

 that human creatures, the produce of the wars, formed alfo a principal 

 article of their trade : and it is much to the credit of Pope Zacharia, 

 that he purchafed, and gave liberty to, a number of flaves of both 

 fexes, whom the Venetian traders were going to carry over to the coaft 

 of Africa to be fold to the Saracens. [Monacb. Smigall. de reh. Car. Mag. 

 ap. Miiratori Ant'tq. V. ii, col. 409 ; Vita Zacharia, ib. col. 883.] 



* This iiariow-miiidtil and ignorant mifrtpre- • cens and Turks worniip (jod tlic Creator, cftecnl- 



fcnlalion coutimud for many agts to difgrace the ' ing Malumitt not a god, but the projiliet of 



pagts of llie Chrilliau writers, with the exception « God.' [6V//. rf^. y^nf/./. 43 bj M.-11 hew Paris 



of a very few; among whom William of Malmf- [/i. 426] alfo fays, that the Saracens believe in 



bury defervcs to be noliced, who, with his ufual one God, the creator of all things, and deleft 



fuperiority of judgment, obfcncs, that ' the Sara- idola. 



