196 J- HORNELL ON 



in 285 B.C., and the establishment of direct trade with India. The merchandise landed 

 at Berenice was carried on camelback 258 miles through the desert to Koptos, 

 whence it was transported south by barges to Alexandria. An alternative and in 

 some respects more convenient port further north at Myos Hormos was subsequently 

 opened by the same monarch in B.C. 274, but even this involved a desert march of 

 over 100 miles to Koptos. This was the beginning of the golden age of ancient sea- 

 trade between Egypt and India, which received increased impetus when the Romans 

 seized Egypt on the death of Cleopatra. For some three hundred years thereafter, 

 this trade must have been relatively enormous to anything that had preceded it. 



Pliny tells us that the trade with Rome was chiefly in spices, condiments, scents 

 and unguents beloved of the gourmet and voluptuary. Pepper curiously enough was 

 in exceptionally great demand and reached incredibly high prices, sometimes rising 

 nearly to ten shillings a pound. Erom Pliny's figures the drain of money to India 

 became even an economic danger as India took little merchandize in exchange. As 

 much cash and bullion (100,000,000 sesterces) as are equivalent to a sum variously 

 estimated at from ;^8oo,ooo to ;;/^i,ooo,ooo of our money are said to have been annually 

 paid by Rome for Indian produce in the heyday of the Empire.' 



To give some particulars, Strabo tells us that in his time (B.C. 63-A.D. 23) the 

 trade between India and Egypt via the Red Sea had increased enormously since the 

 Ptolemies, when "scarcely any one would venture on this voyage and the commerce 

 with the Indies." In his time great fleets of as many as 120 vessels were engaged in 

 the trade, sailing from Myos Hormos.^ 



From Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) we learn that the fleet for India chiefly used 

 the port of Berenice, leaving Egypt in the middle of summer and returning in December 

 or January, from which we see that the monsoon winds were known and taken ad- 

 vantage of, for if the vessels arrived off Aden in August the worst of the south-west 

 monsoon would be over and the current setting eastwards along the Arabian and Mek- 

 ran coasts would bring the fleet to Broach and Malabar just at the time when in pres- 

 ent days the Arab fleet from Busra drops anchor in Bombay and Calicut harbours. Re- 

 turning towards the end of the year they would have equally favourable weather, just 

 missing the unfavourable strong north-west wind that prevails in January. 



Ptolemy of Alexandria who flourished towards the end of the second century 

 gives a formidable list of Indian ports, bespeaking prosperous economical conditions, 

 but it is the " Periplus of the Erythraean Sea," written as far as can be learned by an 

 Egyptian Greek soon after the beginning of the second half of the first century, that 

 pictures most vividly the sea- trade of that time. Maritime knowledge and skill had 

 markedly advanced since Strabo's days ; navigation had become systematised and 

 new routes discovered. Thus instead of hugging the coast round the head of the 

 Arabian Sea, the fleets from Berenice and Myos Hormos after making Muza," an 

 established and notable mart of trade," situated some 25 miles north '^ from the 



1 Pliny's Natural History, XII, i8. i Strabo, Geography, II, 5. 12. 



3 Not " 25 miles south of Mocha," as given by R. Mukerji, Indian Shipping , I<ondon, 1912. 



