Independent of the damming up the mouths of their great rivers, other impenetrable barriers against the entrance of ftrangers on the fide of the fea, and the establishment of a maritime commerce, were eagerly fought after by the jealous policy of the Perfian monarchs, who, in order to render their country ftill more fecure from invafion, were induced to leave utterly uncultivated the fouthern region of the province of Gedrofia, naturally barren, and scorched up by the beams of an almoft direct fun. Along the whole of this extenfive coaft, and the fouthern parts of Carmania, which stretches from the Indus quite to the Perfian Gulph, no city was, in thofe days, to be seen; no friendly port opened its broad arms to the ftorm-beat mariner: it was left in the poffeffion of enemies more hoftile to the human race than even the inhofpitable fa vages of the dreary Ethiopian coaft, the blast of peftilence, and the defolating fury of famine. It was in those desert regions that the armies of Semiramis and Cyrus perished, and that Alexander loft three parts of his numerous and triumphant troops. troops. Of its maritime limit, by far the greater part was an unpeopled defert, and of the inhabited parts, a miferable race, who fubfifted on fish and the plunder of wrecks, afforded to occafional vifitants a dreadful specimen of the sterility of the country and the barbarity of the natives. By these precautions the Perfian fovereigns not only prevented the Phoenician, Carthaginian, Grecian, and other formidable naval powers, from penetrating by that route into the heart of Perfia, but kept facred from the intrusion of foreigners that vigorous and peculiarly lucrative commerce, which had been immemorially carried on between the more northern provinces of their empire and those of India, and which, in this survey of the ancient commerce of Afia, is highly deserving our attention. In the geographical part of this work, vol. i. chap. 3, when speaking of Candahar, a city faid to have been erected by Alexander, in all probability on the fcite of one still more ancient, and to have been fo denominated from his Eaftern name of Secander, I obferved, from the Ayeen Akbery, that, being fituated on the mountains of Paropamifus, which feparate Perfia from India, that fortrefs has, in all ages, been confidered as the gate of Hindoftan towards Perfia, as Cabul was towards Tartary; and I added, from Sir Wil liam Jones, that, according to the Indians, no person Z 4 perfon could properly be called ruler of India, who had not taken poffeffion of Cabul. It was through these gates that the current of a moft extenfive traffic, in all the various produce of the three empires, continued to flow in thofe early periods, and probably centred at the great and ancient city of Lahore, on the Rauvee, the nobleft branch of the Indus, and the favourite refidence of the early kings of India, of which also the reader will find, in the second chapter of the fame Differtation, a minute description from authentic writers. Whichfoever of the great Indian cities was at that time the capital, Delhi, Canouge, or Palibothra, (for in thofe ages we must not mention Agra, then only an obfcure mud-walled fortrefs,) the direct road to it lay through Lahore, and we can alone be enabled to form á juft idea of the importance and value of its commerce, by reflecting that two of the moft fplendid and luxurious courts that Afia ever witneffed, Babylon and Perfepolis, fucceffively obtained, by this route, those sumptuous articles that contributed moft to their magnificence. In ages of fuch remote antiquity as that in which the Affyrian monarchy flourished, unless we allow a very intimate commercial connection to have fubfifted between that T empire empire and India, we are at a lofs to account for that profufion of wealth and pomp that decorated their palaces, the infinity of gems that glittered in the fuperb temple of the Syrian goddefs, and the aromatic gums that eternally flamed on her altars.* An enumeration of a part of those riches will be given hereafter; and though they might obtain from Arabia and Syria many precious woods and drugs, together with gold and ivory, brought by the fhips of those nations from the continent of Africa, yet there were many valuable commodities in the highest request among them, as filks and embroidery, which the Perfian had not then begun to manufacture, together with curious porcelain, and vafes of agate and chryftal, which could not poffibly be obtained through that quarter. It is more than probable, that those great trading nations, in the remote periods to which we allude, supplied themselves at Babylon and Sufa with the Indian manufactures, transported thither by caravans, through the northern Carmania and Aria, the modern Herat. * See Diodorus Siculus on the Palaces of Babylon and the Temple of Belus, lib. ii. p. 97.-See alfo Lucian de Syr. Dea, cap 32 and 33.— And Chardin on the Ruins of Perfepolis, tom. ii. p. 150. What What Cabul and Lahore were in India, the great city of Hecatompylos, in Parthia, or the city with a hundred gates, fo denominated, according to Polybius, becaufe all the roads in the Parthian dominions, centred there, was in ancient Perfia; and it is a remarkable fact, that the modern city of Ifpahan, fuppofed to have been erected on its ruins, according to Tavernier, ftands exactly in the fame predicament as the great central mart of modern Perfia. He adds, that at present it has ten gates; that the road, generally travelled by the caravans paffing into India, is from that capital to Candahar, of which he gives the respective stages and their distances; and that this route is principally used on account of the great plenty of water to be met with in the course of it. From Candahar to Cabul he acquaints us, is a journey of twentyfour days; from Cabul to Lahore takes up twenty-two; and from Lahore to Delhi eigh teen; but that the merchants, when their bufinefs is urgent, quit the caravans, and take horfes, ten or a dozen in company, and ride the whole journey in about a third of the time |