117 
Egypt must have been for many ages a thickly-peopled 
country ; necessarily also, a richly-cultivated one. This 
indeed we know from history, where we often find it called 
" the granary of the world." 
During much of this period, commercial intercourse, 
no doubt, existed between India and Egypt. But it is diffi- 
cult to prove this, to the satisfaction of those, who do not 
allow the existence of eastern products in western markets 
to be sufficient evidence of the fact ; or who deny that the 
substances mentioned in ancient writings, are identical 
with those to which we now apply the same names. The 
subject, however, has been so fully investigated and amply 
proved in the pages of Robertson and Vincent, as well as in 
those of the philosophical Heeren ; that we have only to 
refer to their works, or make use of the materials which 
they have collected; to be assured that many of the sub- 
stances we have found described in the oldest works on Ma- 
teria Medica, constituted objects of a still more ancient 
commerce. 
In examining the articles of this commerce, and the 
routes by which they reached the nations most distant from 
the countries where they were produced ; it is difficult to 
determine where it is preferable to commence. But as some 
portion of the Persian empire, is generally supposed to 
have been the earliest peopled ; and as the Hindoos point 
to the north as the direction whence they entered their 
present country, it will be preferable to trace the connexion 
between India and Persia, and between these and Babylon : 
the city of which there is the earliest historical and com- 
mercial record. 
The early communications with India, as has been 
clearly shown by Heeren, were, as in the present day, both 
by land and by sea. The former is conceived to have 
