INDIAN BOAT DESIGNS. 199 



on the Indus, and makes mention of the great numbers of Indian merchants who 

 resorted to Sabaean ports to sell and barter their goods to the Sabaeans who in turn 

 sold them to the Egyptians and the Greeks. It seems certain also that in the prosecu- 

 tion of this trade the Indian and Arab shipmasters made use of the monsoon winds to 

 steer directly to and from India, knowledge which, we may be sure, was as jealously 

 guarded as that of the Cape route to India by the Portuguese.^ 



With the rise of Greek world supremacy under Alexander, Greek commerce became 

 dominant and what the Arabs had done previously in a small and ineffective manner 

 to exploit Indian sea-trade was taken up and developed by the Greeks to enormous 

 dimensions, particularly in later days, in their enterprising endeavour to satisfy the 

 needs of Roman extravagance. The luxury of Rome in the ostentatious competition 

 of the wealthy in the squandering of money on foreign luxuries and rarities, in my 

 belief, was the ultimate factor that finally entailed the opening of the sea-gates of India 

 in the second century B.C., gates which the Egyptian Greeks had been endeavouring to 

 force ever since Alexander's navigators had demonstrated the vast possibilities of 

 direct sea communication and its immense advantages over long and hazardous land 

 route. Alexander may justly be counted the father of sea-trade between East and 

 West. 



With the creation in Europe of an almost unlimited market for the spices of 

 India a couple of centuries or so prior to the commencement of our era, the seafaring 

 Arab, who had undoubtedly been concerned in a petty way with Indian trade for 

 centuries before, became at once a factor of importance. We are not told by any 

 Greek or Roman writers what crews manned the Greek-owned Indian argosies ; can 

 we doubt that they were Arabs in the main ? Their previous knowledge of the trade 

 would be invaluable to Greek merchant-venturers, and any other supposition is diffi- 

 cult in view of the fact that the author of the ' ' Periplus ' ' continually mentions the 

 presence of Arab traders and ships in the course of his voyaging, as also did the 

 Chinese traveller Fa-hien some 300 years later (between 399 and 414 A.D).^ 



The Chinese trade connection now comes into view and it is noteworthy that the 

 Arabs and Chinese held intimate commercial relations from very early times. We 

 find from Chinese records that even in 300 A.D. enterprising Arabs from the south- 

 ern Arabian coast had established a colony at Canton. The earliest Arab narratives 

 relating to Chinese trade belong to the ninth century ; from these we gather that 

 " Chinese goods were very expensive at Basra and Bagdad because of frequent fires at 

 Canton and because ships are frequently wrecked or taken by pirates." 



From various indications it seems probable that the bulk of the direct trade 

 between India and China between the ninth and fifteenth centuries was carried in 

 Chinese bottoms. Marco Polo's description of the one-masted Arab vessels which 

 carried horses and merchandize between the Persian Gulf and the West Coast of India, 



' The charts necessary for the voyage to India were given to the Commander prior to sailing from Ivisbon and had 

 to be jealously guarded by him and given back upon his return home. (Caboton, A., Java, Sumatra and the othef 

 islands of the Dutch East Indies, p 29. I,ondon, 191 1.) 



* Log. cit. supra. 



