135 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. S. 



twelve ounces of gold: but the supply increased 

 with the demand, and the price diminished with 

 the supply. If accident or monopoly sometimes 

 raised the value even above the standard of Aure- 

 lian, the manufactures of Tyre and Berytuswere 

 sometimes compelled by the operation of the same 

 causes to content themselves with a ninth part of 

 that extravagant rate. A law was thought neces- 

 sary to discriminate the dress of comedians from 

 that of senators; and of the silk exported from its 

 native country, the far greater part was consumed 

 by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more 

 intimately acquainted with a shellfish of the Med- 

 iterranean, surnamed the silkworm of the sea: the 

 fine wool or hair by which the mother-of-pearl af- 

 fixes itself to the rock, is now manufactured for 

 curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained from 

 the same singular materials, was the gift of the 

 Roman emperor to ihe satrnps of Armenia. 



A valuable merchandize of small bulk is capa- 

 ble of defraying the expense of land carriage; and 

 the caravans traversed the whole latitude of Asia 

 in two hundred and forty-three days, from the 

 Chinese ocean to the sea coast of Syria. Silk was 

 immediately delivered to the Romans by the Per- 

 sian merchants, who frequented the fairs of Ar- 

 menia and Nisibis: but this trade, which in the in- 

 tervals of truce was oppressed by avarice and jea- 

 lousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of 

 the rival monarchies. The great king might 

 proudly number Sogdiana, and even Serica, 

 among the provinces of his empire; but his real 

 dominion was bounded by the Oxus, and his use- 

 ful intercourse with the Sogdoites, beyond the ri- 

 ver, depended on the pleasure of their conquerors, 

 the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively 

 reigned over that industrious people. Yet the 

 most savage dominion has not extirpated the seeds 

 of agriculture and commerce, in a region which is 

 celebrated as one of the four gardens of Asia; the 

 cities of Samarcand and Bochara are advantage- 

 ously seated for the exchange of its various pro- 

 ductions; and their merchants purchased from the 

 Chinese the raw or manufactured silk which they 

 transported into Persia lor the use of the Roman 

 empire. In the vain capital of China, the. Sog- 

 dian caravans were entertained as the suppliant 

 embassies of tributary kingdoms, and if they re- 

 turned in safety, the bold adventure was rewarded 

 with exorbitant gain. But the difficult and peri- 

 lous march from Samarcand to the first town of 

 Shensi, could not be performed in less than sixty, 

 eighty, or one hundred days; as soon as they had 

 passed the Jazartes they entered the desert; and 

 the wandering hordes, unless they are restrained 

 by armies and garrisons, have always considered 

 the citizen and the traveller as the objects of law- 

 ful rapine. To escape the Tartar robbers and the 

 tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans explored a 

 more southern road; they traversed the moun- 

 tains of Thibet, descended the streams of the 

 Ganges or the Indus, and patiently expected, in 

 the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual 

 fleets of the West. But the dangers of the de- 

 sert were found less intolerable than toil, hunger, 

 and the loss of time; the attempt was seldom re- 

 newed, and the only European who has passed 

 that unfrequented way, applauds his own dili- 

 gence, that in nine months after his departure 

 from Pekin, he reached the mouth of the Indus. 

 The ocean, however, was open to the free com- 



munication of mankind. From the great river to 

 the tropic of Cancer, the provinces of China were 

 subdued and civilized by the emperors of the 

 North; they were filled about the time of the 

 Christian a-ra with cities and men, mulberry trees 

 and their precious inhabitants; and if the Chinese, 

 with the knowledge of the compass, had possess- 

 ed the genius of the Greeks or Phoenicians, they 

 might have spread their discoveries over the 

 southern hemisphere. I am not qualified to ex- 

 amine, and I am not disposed to believe, their 

 distant voyages to the Persian gulf or the Cape of 

 Good Hope: but their ancestors might equal the 

 labors and success of the present race, and the 

 sphere of their navigation might extend from the 

 isles of Japan to the'straits of^Malacca, the pillars, 

 if we may apply that name, of an Oriental Her- 

 cules. Without losing sight of land, they might 

 sail along Ihe coast to the extreme promontory of 

 Achin, which is annually visited by ten or twelve 

 ships laden with the productions, the manufactures, 

 and even the artificers, of China; the island of 

 Sumatra and the opposite peninsula, are faintly 

 delineated as the regions of gold and silver: and 

 the trading cities, named in the geography of 

 Ptolemy, may indicate, that this wealth was not 

 solely derived from the mines. The direct inter- 

 val between Sumatra and Ceylon is about three 

 hundred leagues: the Chinese and Indian naviga- 

 tors were conducted by the flight of birds and pe- 

 riodical winds, and the ocean might be securely 

 traversed in square-built ships, which, instead of 

 iron, were sewed together with the strong thread 

 of the cocoa-nut. Ceylon, Serendib, orTaprobana. 

 was divided between two hostile princes; one of 

 whom possessed the mountains, the elephants, 

 and the luminous carbuncle, and theother enjoyed 

 the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign 

 trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinquemale, 

 which received and dismissed the fleets of the 

 East and West. In this hospitable isle, at an 

 equal distance, (as it was computed) from their' 

 respective countries, the silk merchants of China, 

 who had collected in their voyages aloes, cloves, 

 nutmeg, and santal wood, maintained a free and 

 beneficial commerce with the inhabitants of the 

 Persian irulf The subjects of the great king ex- 

 alted, without a rival, his power and magnificence^ 

 and the Roman, who confounded their vanity by 

 comparing his paltry coin with a gold medal of the 

 emperor Anastosius, had sailed to Ceylon, in an 

 Ethiopian ship, as a simple passenger. 



As silk became of indispensable use, the em- 

 peror Justinian saw, with concern, that the Per- 

 sians had occupied by land and sea the monopoly 

 of this important supply, and that the wealth of 

 his subjects was continually drained by a nation of 

 enemies and idolaters. An active government 

 would have restored the trade of Egypt and the 

 navigation of the Red Sea, which had deca3^ed 

 with the prosperity of the empire; and the Roman 

 vessels might have sailed, for the purchase of silk, 

 to the ports of Ceylon, of Malacca, or even of 

 China. Justinian embraced a more humble ex- 

 pedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies, 

 the ^Ethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently 

 acquired the arts of navigation, the spirit of trade, 

 and the seaport of Adulis, still decorated with the 

 trophies of a Grecian conqueror. Along the Af- 

 rican coast, they penetrated to the equator in 

 search of gold, emeralds, and aromatic*; but they 



