214 



ON THE ANCIENT 



This is also the place to mention that, besides the Arabs, 

 Jews, Nestorians, and in later times Parsis settled in India. 

 From a commercial point of view the last deserve attention 

 as some of them became most prosperous merchants. 



While the Arabs extended thus their commerce, of which 

 India was the centre, as far as Gampu in China, the Italian 

 cities Venice and Genoa, also got a fair share of the Indian 

 traffic. Many citizens of those famous towns travelled far 

 in the East and entered into commercial transactions with 

 oriental princes and nations. The crusades though originally 

 undertaken for religious purposes and unsuccessful in the 

 attainment of their principal object, proved of the greatest 

 importance in removing many prejudices which existed 

 between Occident and Orient, and in causing friendly relations 

 to arise out of deadly religious strife. The Venetians possessed 

 a factory in Alexandria, still the centre of the commerce 

 between Europe and Asia. The Genoese founded Kaff a in 

 the Crimea and Tana, being favoured by the Palaeologian 

 Emperors. Augsburg in Germany lay on the highroad, 

 which having crossed the snowy Alps, formed the passage 

 for the Eastern and Indian products to the centre of Europe. 

 The Hanseates participated in the Levant trade, and Bruges, 

 in Flanders, became opulent by its factories, which manufac- 

 tured the raw materials of the East. Spain, France and the 

 British Islands had their fair portion in the Indian commerce, 

 though the real traffic in those days was more in the hands 

 of Italian and German towns or confederacies; 



This state of things lasted, until the Portuguese, roused by 

 the reports of the existence of that mighty but mysterious 

 potentate the Prester John of India, whom I have identified 

 as the powerful Emperor of Central- Asia, the Korkhan of 

 Karakhitai, despatched Bartholomeo Diaz and later Vasco da 

 Gama in search of him. The latter did not find the renowned 

 priestly king but instead the seaway to India. The landing 



