Commercial Prize of the Orient 401 



From the earliest dawn of history down 

 to the present hour the over-expanding 

 West has struggled for the control of the 

 commerce of the East. Whether that 

 struggle was against the fierce blasts of 

 the desert, the attacks of the half-civil- 

 ized tribes through whose territory it 

 must becarried, or thedeath-dealingcan- 

 non, whose thunders are heard around 

 the world today, it has been vigorous, 

 unyielding, continuous ; and as civiliza- 

 tion has advanced, commerce developed, 

 transportation cheapened, and the wants 

 of man expanded, the importance of this 

 commercial prize has increased until its 

 value has today reached the enormous 

 sum of nearly 3,000 millions of dollars 

 per annum. 



In all that time commerce has been 

 the faithful handmaiden of geography. 

 It has explored unknown lands, has 

 learned the value of their products, has 

 formed the acquaintance of the people, 

 has made the ocean its highways and 

 the desert and the mountains its byways, 

 and has been the chief contributor to 

 geographic knowledge of the Orient 

 and the Occident, the temperate zones 

 and the tropics, and even the frozen 

 fastnesses of the Arctics. Whether the 

 search for a route to the Orient was 

 across the deserts of Asia, around the 

 stormy capes at the Far South, or bat- 

 tling with the ice at the North, geogra- 

 phy has been the gainer, and the com- 

 mercial struggles and sacrifices of each 

 generation have contributed to the geo- 

 graphic knowledge of that which fol- 

 lowed it. 



The earliest record of transactions 

 between men and groups of men shows 

 commerce passing between the Nile Val- 

 ley, then the Occident of the civilized 

 world, and the Orient, the Euphrates 

 Valley, India, and China. As early as 

 2,500 years before the Christian era cara- 

 vans of camels laden with merchandise 

 were passing back and forth across the 

 sandy deserts of Arabia between the 

 Nile Valley at the west and the great 



commercial cities of Nineveh and Baby- 

 lon at the east, and these cities in turn 

 had like relations with India and per- 

 haps China. Whether the commerce 

 with China at that early day was by 

 the way of a direct land route from the 

 Euphrates Valley is not clear, but there 

 is at least reason to believe that there 

 were trade routes between India and 

 China, and that the silks and other mer- 

 chandise of China at the extreme east 

 found their way through India and the 

 cities of the Euphrates to the Nile Val- 

 ley at the west. 



This commerce was, of course, small 

 in quantity as compared with that of 

 today, and consisted only of the easily 

 transported articles. But it was com- 

 merce, nevertheless, and one for which 

 men risked their lives, and which then 

 as now contributed to the geographic 

 as well as the commercial knowledge of 

 the world. How the commerce of that 

 period, carried on first by the Arabs 

 across the desert with camel caravans 

 and later by the Phoenicians with their 

 coasting vessels and thence by caravan, 

 compares with that of today, when rail- 

 roads traverse the land and great steam- 

 ships plow the ocean, may be worth a 

 moment in passing. The land com- 

 merce of that period was carried by 

 camels, of which it would require 5,000 

 to carry as much as one modern train of 

 cars, while the water-borne commerce 

 was in oar-propelled vessels, of which 

 it would require 300 to carry as much 

 as a single modern steamer of today. 



Even a thousand years later the cara- 

 vans, which made their way from the 

 shores of the Mediterranean to China, 

 occupied more than one year in the 

 round trip, while the vessels, which had 

 then begun to utilize sails in conjunc- 

 tion with oars, still hugged the coast 

 and traveled only by day, and in their 

 long voyages were sometimes compelled 

 to halt for months at a time while the 

 occupants replenished their supplies of 

 food by sowing, cultivating, and reap- 



