THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE. 177 
and desolating wars between the Mongolians and the Ottomans, 
by which the caravan traffic through South-Western Asia (by 
Cashmir, Lahore Candahar, Cabul, Samarcand, Bokaria, Herat, 
Teheran, and Tauru3, Kasan, Orenburg and Astracan, Tiflis, Eri- 
van, Erzeroum, Mossul, Bagdad and Basra, Mocha, Mecca, Medina, 
Damascus, Aleppo, Tokat, Brussa, and Smyrna), in several countries 
for a long time was interrupted, and only Alexandria remained in 
connection with India, the trade being maintained by Venice for 
centuries. The rich countries and islands of the south-east of Europe 
later shared in this misfortune, as "the savage Ottomans, in the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries, crossing from Asia, desolated them, 
and at length the storming of Constantinople, a.d. 1453, made an end 
of the Greek empire. In consequence of this, the possessions acquired 
by Genoa and Venice, and the commercial freedom of the Levant, were 
lost. 
In the rest of Europe, commerce remained stationary till after the 
introduction of the use of the compass at the beginning of the fourteenth 
century. A new epoch for navigation now commenced. With the help 
of this simple instrument, sea voyages were performed with rich results, 
till at length the whole course of trade was revolutionised, and a new 
period in the commercial world brought about. 
Then began a desire for longer sea voyages, in order still further 
to explore the as yet unknown oceans, and to make fortunate 
discoveries. In Italy thinking minds were agitated, and the en- 
deavour began to discover a direct way by sea to the East Indies 
rather than by the circumnavigation of Africa, in order so much the 
easier to arrive at the spring-head of commerce, and to be able to draw 
over at first hand the rich productions of that land without the 
Egyptian Sultan having first to be bought. In Egypt, the traffic 
was guarded with the most anxious precaution, so that no European 
could carry down goods to Arabia and India through their land, the 
Arabian Gulf, or the Red Sea. What the Europeans naturally for profit 
had brought was consumed by the inter-traders in Indian goods, and 
that which they carried to Alexandria and Damietta was sold at prices 
determined and paid by the Venetians. 
But it was reserved for Portugal and Spain, instead of Italy, to 
solve this great problem, alike important for commerce and for science. 
Portugal, indeed, did much, and had the first triumph, from the circum- 
stance that its King's son, Prince Henry the sailor, broke the path, 
and discovered Porto Santo and Madeira in 1418, the Azores in 1432, 
the Cape de Verd Islands in 1444, and Senegambia and the Gold Coast 
of Guinea in 1452. The circumnavigation of the promontory cf the 
Cape of Good Hope, and the discovery of the ocean way to the much- 
prized India, was made by Vasco de Gama in 1498, and thus the long 
looked for period arrived. But whilst Portugal was occupied in the dis- 
covery of land to the far East, the courageous Genoese, Christopher 
