THE INDIA TRADE. 49 



threads stolen from the body of a caterpillar, beautiful 

 as the wings of the moth into which that caterpillar is 

 afterwards transformed. 



Neither the Indians, the Chaldeans, nor the Egyp- 

 tians were in the habit of travelling beyond the confines 

 of their own valleys. They resembled islanders, and 

 they had no ships. But the intermediate seas were 

 navigated by the wandering shepherd tribes, who some- 

 times pastured their flocks by the waters of the Indus, 

 sometimes by the waters of the Nile. It was by their 

 means that the trade between the river lands was 

 carried on. They possessed the camels and other 

 beasts of burden requisite for the transport of goods. 

 Their numbers and their warlike habits, their intimate 

 acquaintance with the watering-places and seasons of 

 the desert, enabled them to carry the goods in safety 

 through a dangerous land ; while the regular profits 

 they derived from the trade, and the t>aths by which 

 they were bound, induced them to act fairly to those by 

 whom they wereemployed. At alater period theChinese, 

 who were once a great naval people, and who claim the 

 discovery of the New World, doubled Cape Comorin 

 in their huge junks, and sailed up the western coast of 

 India into the Persian Gulf, and along the coast of 

 Arabia to the mouth of the Red Sea. It was probably 

 from them that the arts of shipbuilding and navigation 

 were acquired by the Arabs of Yemen and the Indians 

 of Guzerat, who then made it their business to supply 

 Babylon and Egypt and Eastern Africa with India 

 goods. At a later period still these India goods were 

 carried by the Phoenicians to the coasts of Europe, and 

 acorn-eating savages were awakened to industry and 

 ambition. India, as a Land of Desire, has contributed 

 much to the development of man. On the routes of 



