that filk, the cabinets, porcelain, and other rich and useful manufactures of China, fo often and minutely enumerated before, were and are ftill bartered the moft valuable furs and the finest ermines of the northern Afia, the mufk of Thibet, and Siberian rhubarb, both the best of their kind in the world. It fhould not be forgotten, that the more northern provinces of Perfia itself, Hyrcania, Margiana, Bactria, were formerly full of great and flourishing cities, whofe inhabitants with avidity purchased the richest manufactures of India and China, brought to them by this route; while, ftill farther north, the isthmus, which separates the Caspian and Euxine Seas, was covered with cities and nations now utterly exterminated. To be more particular, Eratofthenes, in Strabo,* informs us, that' the merchandize of India paffed by the Oxus through the Cafpian, which the ancients, with inflexible obftinacy, perfevered in supposing to have a communication with the Northern, and fome even with the Indian, Ocean, into the Sea of Pontus. We also learn from Pliny, that it was but a journey of seven days from the frontiers of India, through the country of

the Bactrians, to the river Icarus, which falls into the Oxus, down which ftream the commodities of India were tranfported into the Cafpian Sea. Thence, he adds, they were carried up the river Cyrus to a place within five days journey overland to Phasis, the capital of Colchis, in Grecian fable renowned for its golden fleece, which, in all probability, was nothing more than the golden produce of India, which the Argonauts fecured by opening the commerce of the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea.* At this day, the Oxus no longer flows into the Cafpian, the miserable policy of the modern Tartars having induced them to divert its courfe, as well as that of the Iaxartes; and thefe two noble rivers are now loft and swallowed up in the fands of that boundless defert, Colchis itself, whose splendid and crowded marts allured to that region of Afia all the nations of the earth, is now only a vaft foreft, and its few inhabitants are not only flaves themselves, but carry on the horrid traffic in human flesh to a vast extent, The Ruffians are now in complete poffeffion of this northern commerce, which is carried on, by caravans, over the deferts of Siberia,

*Plinii Nat, Hift. lib. ii. cap. 17,

that

that enter the Chinese territories by Selinginfkoy, in the 52d degree of north latitude; and Europe with astonishment has witneffed a traffic maintained between the capitals of two great empires, fituated from each other at the immense distance of above fix thousand miles.

:

To return from this long, though neceffary, digreffion on the commercial concerns of Egypt and Perfia to our furvey of the Athenians, we shall scarcely wonder at their being more addicted to nautical adventures than any other of the ftates of Greece, if we recollect that the abrupt and rocky furface of their country denying to its inhabitants the advantage, fo amply enjoyed by the Indians, of navigable rivers and canals, for carrying on a vigorous internal traffic, their attention was, of neceffity, principally directed to maritime commerce. Still, however, their fhips made. not the fame majestic appearance as those of the Phoenicians did; nor were they directed with the naval skill of that nation. Shipwrecks were frequent, and insurance, as well as fpeculation, frequently ran as high on the exchange of Athens as ever they have been known on that of London. In reality, the Euxine, the Ægean, and other feas,—seas of

1

fuch inferior magnitude, that the Mediterra-
nean was comparatively the ocean to them,
which were principally navigated by the early
Greeks, were fo dangerous from shallows, and
fo fubject to the agitation of tempests, that,
whatever might be their ambition to rival
the Tyrians and Carthaginians, they were
compelled in general both to employ veffels of
lefs magnitude, and load them with cargoes
lefs valuable than thofe nations; though in
their more distant voyages, to India and Bri-
tain, they muft of neceffity have made use of
larger veffels. An account which we have in
Xenophon, in his Economica, of a Phœnician
merchant-veffel, then in the port of Piræus,
in which the dimenfions of that veffel are
compared with those of Greece, is an unan-
fwerable confirmation of this statement.
truth, the Athenians were not accuftomed to
traffic in commodities of any very great bulk
or weight; theirs, except in fome particular
inftances, was a trade in articles of elegance
and luxury. Their exports confifted of a
great variety of rich wines, conveyed, how-
ever, in veffels of very inferior magnitude to
those in which are transported to Britain the
wines of Portugal and the Madeiras; thofe
veficles were either made of leathern bags,

In

ftrongly

ftrongly fewed together, refembling the mo ́dern borachios, or confifted of jars, confiderable in fize, of which there was a celebrated manufactory established at Athens, for the exprefs purpose of conveying abroad the curious produce of the Grecian vineyards. Their extenfive groves of the plant facred to Minerva, alfo, enabled them, not lefs than the Phoenicians, to drive a confiderable trade in the pureft oil; to which may be added, the valued honey and wax of Mount Hymettus. The Athenian merchants, alfo, exported to Afia, covetous of her rarities, all those inimitable productions of her artists in ftatuary, painting, metallurgy, and every branch of mechanic science, which rendered Greece fo renowned; and, finally, the rich filver mines, with which Attica was ftored, afforded her the abundant means of carrying on an extenfive traffic in that precious metal with India, a country, whose avarice for that commodity, after twenty centuries, is ftill as infatiable as ever. The principal imports of the Athenians were grain from Sicily and the adjoining ifles, for the fupport of the numerous inhabitants of their crowded metropolis; flaves in aftonishing multitudes were also constantly imported by a nation, boasting its love of liberty,

to