Link Relations of Southwestern Asia 297 



pezus, Erzerum (Arx Romana) to Alex- 

 andria, through Antioch and Palmyra 

 to the carved canons of Petrsea, grew in 

 splendor and in wealth. As long as the 

 Parthian policy left Seleucia and her 

 sister Greek cities in touch, the trade 

 around the Arabian peninsula was un- 

 vexed by the Arabic dhow. The Greek 

 trader was in all the waters about Arabia. 

 These conditions disappeared under the 

 more rigorous administration of the 

 Sassanidse, and the Greek cities with- 

 ered. The Arab expansion into Abys- 

 sinia, possible under the polic}- of Au- 

 gustus, an expansion which so narrowly 

 transferred the birth of Islam from 

 Mecca to this mountain plateau, was 

 accompanied by the spread of Arabian 

 commerce around Asia. A century later 

 the Chinese junk was a frequent visitor 

 in the Euphrates, and the hongs of 

 Arabian merchants at Canton preceded 

 by 1,000 years the like and later estab- 

 lishments of north Europe. The trade 

 of the Red Sea was replaced, as it had 

 been preceded, by cargoes debarked at 

 Aden and following the northern routes 

 which passed through Mecca, and whose 

 farther journey Mohammed more than 

 once shared. 



Whenever from any cause the Red 

 Sea became closed, or when, early, the 

 vessel of the da}' was incapable of the 

 long trip around the Arabian peninsula, 

 then always as in Himaryitic and earlier 

 days, southern Arabia becomes an or- 

 ganized monarchy because enjoying the 

 revenue of this trade. The line of 

 sparse settlements which follows the ex- 

 tinct volcanic heights of the great Rift 

 along the eastern shore of the Red Sea 

 springs into an activity which in the 

 seventh century burst forth in the ex- 

 plosion of Islam. The outlines of this 

 outburst are familiar. Under it this 

 entire region, with the exception of Asia 

 Minor, was in the hands of a rule cen- 

 tered on the Tigris, as ten centuries be- 

 fore at Nineveh or Babylon ; but since 

 the Mediterranean outposts were no 



longer, as for ten centuries past, under 

 alien hands, Greek or Roman, the 

 Caliphate exceeded in power and in 

 splendor the two Asiatic rules which, 

 without this aid and vantage, had pre- 

 ceded it in the same valley. 



One fatal change, however, came. 

 This inroad from the southern plain 

 swept across the dividing line of moun- 

 tains in north Persia and pushed what, 

 remembering its results, may fairly be 

 called a sluice into Tatary. The prov- 

 ince which stretched down the Oxus, 

 Ma-wara-1-nahr, made the first open 

 communication between the great plain 

 to the north and the valleys and plateau 

 to the south. Under the Samanids it 

 felt Persian civilization, Arab learning, 

 and Moslem faith. There begun that 

 steady migration, first of Turkish slaves 

 to the court of Baghdad and later of the 

 Tatar horde, until there burst forth all 



The black Tatar tents which stood 

 Clustering like beehives on the low, flat strand 

 Of Oxus, where the summer floods o'erflow 

 When the sun melts the snow in high Pamir. 



The results of these successive inva- 

 sions, Seljuk, Turk, Tatar, or Mongol, 

 in all its hideous forms, spread terror, 

 desolation, and lasting death and decay 

 from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. 

 It broke all the channels of trade, inter- 

 rupted the connected development be- 

 tween the East and the West, which had 

 been slowly developing through nearly 

 four millennia, and played no small share 

 in causing the arrest of the Mediterra- 

 nean basin, which had for nearly seven 

 centuries but the fitful light of a dying 

 civilization in which a new faith w^as 

 making its way, diicente deo , flamviani 

 inter et hostes. 



Its growth led to an attempt in the 

 crusades to stay the joint progress of 

 Arab and Seljuk, for the men of the 

 fiatlands south and north had both over- 

 spread the region between. Meanwhile 

 the currents of trade were moving again 

 to the north of the Black Sea, southern 



