A, D. 849. 255 



able by companion with the total want of it among their neighbours: 

 and that the commercial intercourfe, or intercourfe of any kind, in Ita- 

 ly, was not very confiderable, is evident from the want of inns for the 

 reception of travelers upon the roads, and even in fome of the principal 

 cities of that country *. 



The decline of the Grecian empire, and the conqucll of Perfia, re- 

 ftored to the victorious Arabians the antient m.aritime commerce of In- 

 dia with a very great augmentation. But the principal feat of the trade 

 had long been removed from the fouth coaft of Arabia to the Perfian 

 eulf, as we learn from the Chinefe annals of the feventli and eighth 

 centuries f, and more particularly from an account written by SoUman, 

 an Arabian merchant, which, as a valuable monument of Oriental com- 

 mercial hiftory, deferves, even in the mutilated flate wherein we receive 

 it, to be ranked next to the Periplus of the Erythraean fea. 



851 — From Soliman's relation we learn that the Arabian merchants 

 had now extended their commerce and their difcoveries in the Eaft far 

 beyond the utmoft knowlege of their own anceflors, the Greek mer- 

 chants of Egypt, or the Ethiopian merchants ofAduli, which in the 

 time of Cofmas Indicopleuftes (and we have no particvilar account of 

 any later date) had never gone beyond Siele-div (or Ceylon) J. Their 

 vefTels now traded to every part of the continent as far as the fouth coaft 

 of China, and to many of the iflands, of all which he gives defcriptions, 

 whereof very few can be reconciled to our ideas or appellations of Ori- 

 ental geography. The very exiftence of China being hitherto almoft 

 unknown in the weftern parts of the world, he gives a pretty ample ac- 

 covuit of it, from which I extradt the following particulars, illuftrative 

 of the commercial hiftory of that lingular empire. 



When foreign vellels arrive at Can-fu (luppofed to be Canton §) the 

 Chinefe take poifenion of their cargoes, and ftore them in warehoufes 

 till the arrival of all the other Ihips which are expected, whereby they 

 are fometimes detained fix months. They then levy a duty of thirty 



* In the year 840, fome merchants of Amalfi, the fecond century. (See above, p. 194, or Mr. De 



being at Tarcntum, were invited by the keepers Guignes, as quoted in the preceding note). But 



ol the prifon to lodge in it, tlicre being tio inn in we know no particulars of their route or their 



the city. The merchants were glad to accept their trade : and, with fubmidion, I may obfcrve, that 



offei', and gave them money to purcliafe vidluals as their navigation extended no farther than Cey- 



and wine for them, \_j4nonymus Siilerriitaniis, ap. Ion in the fixth century, and even that under a 



Muratori Script. V. ii, part ii, p. 221 — and fee foreign flag (to borrow a modern phrafe), any ac- 



Muralori's 37 th dijfcrtation in Antiq. V. iii, ch hof- count of earlier navigations to more diilant ports 



pitalibus peregrinorum.'} would need to be iupported by very ftrong au- 



f For the information derived from thofe an- thority._ 



nals we are indebted to the erudition and induilry § Caa-fu does not appear among the old names 



of Mr. De Guignes. {^Reflexions fur ks liaifons des of Quangcheu or Canton, given by Martin Mar- 



Romains a-vec les Tarlarei et Chiiioii, in Mem. de tinius in Thevenot's Foyages curieux, V. ii, p. 167. 



litterature, V. xxxii, p. 367.] In Sir George Staunton's Emhijfy to China the 



\ Some fubjedls of the Roman empire are fup- name is Quang-Tchoo-Foo. 

 pofed to have traded to China by fea as early as 



