THE COMMERCE OF INDIA IN EARLY TIMES. THE COMMERCE OF INDIA IN EARLY FOR the last three thousand years has India, unexhausted and inexhaustible, been pouring an uninterrupted stream of opulence upon the Western World. During that long period, measuring half the duration of the globe, the intermediate points of communication between the East and the West have changed with the rise and fall of mighty cities and empires. Connected, however, with all such changes, there is one fact that stands out in singular prominence, challenging the attention of the patriot, the statesman, and the Christian philanthropist. It is a fact, too, so uniform and characteristic, that it may well be entitled to rank as a historic law. The fact is this:-that whatever city or nation has, in the lapse of past ages, held in its hands the keys of Indian commerce and Indian influence, that city or nation has, for the time being, stood forth in the van of the civilized world as the richest and the most flourishing. Indeed, the temporary monopoly of Indian trade has rescued even petty states from obscurity, and raised them to a height of greatness, and wealth, and power, vastly incommensurate with their natural resources. Some of the most famous cities of antiquity it may be said to have literally created. With the first possession of it, they suddenly sprang to their meridian of glory; and with its departure, they as rapidly sunk into the dark night of oblivion. The southern peninsula of Arabia, projecting as it does like an isthmus between the East and the West, seems from the earliest times to have enjoyed, on a great scale, the full benefit of Indian commerce. And is it not matter of historic record, that the most important advantages were thereby conferred on the inhabitants? Did it not stimulate their industry at home,-multiplying the necessaries, enhancing the comforts, and superadding the most coveted luxuries of life? Engaging the services of art, as the ally of nature, did it not lead to such improvements of an originally happy soil, as doubly to justify the poetic designation of Araby the Blest? Did it not arouse the great mass of the people to correspondent activities abroad-earning for them a distinguished reputation for nautical enterprise, and enabling them to plant and maintain flourishing colonies on the most distant African shores ? Or, casting our eyes northward, over the sandy skirts of ancient Syria, do we not find the barren waste doing homage to the prolific bounty of the East? Do we not find the mere transit depôt of Indian produce suddenly rise into surpassing grandeur? Indian commerce found Palmyra composed, as it were, of brick, but left it more precious than marble. And, to this day, those ruins that fill the traveller with amazement, if animated and vocal, 109 would cease not to proclaim, Behold, these are but the time-worn fragments of that wealth and magnificence which dropped in the desert from the wings of Orient riches, on their passage to the West! Or, if we look westward, along the shores of the Mediterranean, do we not find the various tribes of Phenicia, though only the secondary conveyers of the merchandise of the East, thereby raised into temporary prosperity and renown? And with the disappearance of that aggrandizing traffic, do we not find all that glory vanish like a dream? What enabled Tyre, single-handed and unaided, to resist so successfully, and so long, the mightiest assaults of the Macedonian conqueror? Chiefly the resources which it had accumulated from its monopoly of the Indian trade. This could not escape the eagle-eye of Alexander. Accordingly, on having achieved the conquest of Egypt, he at once resolved, through that country, to open a direct communication with India, and replace Tyre by a noble emporium for Eastern trade. Hence the origin and design of that celebrated city which still retains the name of its royal founder. And when the conqueror, in his swift career, reached the Indus with its tributaries, and had concluded, in those days of geographical ignorance, that these were none other than the feeding streams of the Nile, his biographer, Arrian, expressly assures us, that the vast fleet placed under the command of Nearchus, was equipped for the specific purpose of opening the direct intercourse between India and Alexandria. So bent was the hero on this favourite project, and such importance did he attach to its success, that when, after weeks of intense anxiety, he was at length suddenly relieved from all fear as to the safety of his fleet, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "By the Libyan Ammon, and the Grecian Jove, I swear to thee, that I am made happier by this intelligence, than in being the conqueror of Asia; for I should have considered the loss of my fleet, and the failure of the enterprise it has undertaken, as almost outweighing, in my mind, all the glory I have acquired." The execution of this magnificent design he lived not to witness. But under his immediate successors, Alexandria soon became the channel of communication between Europe and Eastern Asia. And recent though it was, and but of yesterday, compared with the hundred-gated Thebes, and other ancient cities, direct trade with India and the East speedily raised it into such pre-eminence, that it appeared to eclipse all else besides, even in a land so prodigal of architectural wonders. Yea, when it ceased to exercise sovereign power, and became politically dependant on all-conquering Rome, it still maintained its proud position as the commercial capital of the empire; while, in opulence, splendour, and population, it bade fair to rival, if not outrival, the Eternal City itself. After the proud mistress of the world sunk into decrepitude and inanition, Arabia once more sprung up into more than its original greatness. Its tribes, headed by a warrior-prophet, and inflamed with fanatical fury, speedily overran many of the fairest provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa, gathering up the spoils and fragments of the shattered empire of the Cæsars-planting the Mohammedan crescent in distant realms, which the Roman eagle never knew. With the extension of their conquests were re-developed those mercantile energies which distinguished their forefathers. On almost every shore, from the straits of Gibraltar to the extremity of the ultra-Gangetic Peninsula, were strongholds established, as posts for military aggression, or depots for commercial enterprise. The Moslem conquerors having usurped the dominion of the Eastern and Western seas, and for several centuries maintained an uncontrolled supremacy over them, the trade of India, in all its boundless variety, became exclusively theirs. Bagdad, their capital, started up at once, the Rome, and the Alexandria, and the Athens of the East. Resistless in arms, unrivalled in commerce, matchless in learning, it absorbed, while it flourished, all power, all wealth, all wisdom. And when its day began to decline, its commerce with India and the East fringed the lengthened shadows of evening with a halo of glory. That commerce had caused the sun of its prosperity to shine with seven-fold greater splendour; and when it would have suddenly sunk in darkness, its setting was protracted into a long and glowing twilight. Year after year did the balmy plains, and aromatic groves, and pearly shores of India pour in their redundant stores to replenish the exhausted treasury of the Caliphate. Year after year did the Ganges, as it were, roll in another and another wave to retard the final drying up of the Euphrates. When, at length, the Mohammedan empire was broken up into divers independent principalities, Indian commerce, instead of flowing in one allcomprehending channel, came to be distributed among several lesser ones, each deriving therefrom the most important advantages. The vigorous revival of the old branch of the trade by the Red Sea, renovated the decaying city of Alexandria. The new branch, stretching along the great desert of Syria, restored to something like primitive grandeur some of its dilapidated cities. The northern branch, by the Caspian and Black Sea, enriched every country along the route, and added fresh lustre to the imperial city of Constantine.-Rev. Dr. Duff's India and Indian Missions. THE UNWISELY 1.IBERAL. SOME are unwisely liberal, and more delight to give presents than pay debts.-Sir P. Sidney. THE ANCIENT BRITONS. THE existence and position of our land were, beyond all doubt, known to the ancients long before its conquest. Phenician prows had found its shores. And, however dismembered from the world, it is more than probable that from our isle, to which the word of God but reached, there" came out" a monstrous superstition. Here at least was its principal school, and amidst deep and solemn forests the Gaul was instructed in the knowledge of its mysteries and the practice of its rites. It is almost morally certain that our forefathers were the Hyperboreans, who are described by the Father of History as peculiar favourites with the inhabitants of Delos. Apollo was their common god. The barley-stalk was their mutual symbol. Reciprocal presents and interchanged offices express the identity of the system. Who that has attended to these researches can refuse assent to the origin and ramifications of this one superstition? The Celtic or Orphic hymns respond to one another. The Druid oak agrees with the oracular tree of Dodona. Britain and Thessaly bear the marks of the same idolatrous bonds. The classical scholar knows the travels of Pythagoras into Gaul, and the irruption of Gallic invaders into Greece. The very amulet worn by the ancient priests of our country was the invariable symbol of the Egyptian priests. But this island seems to have been the most sacred retreat of this wide-spread system; to have understood it most perfectly, and to have promulgated it most zealously. To apostolic Christians, had they judged from the superficial appearances of things, many mitigations of the system might have suggested themselves; and a redeeming glory might have been supposed to invest its forms, and to rise out of its significations. The Druid, selected from the noblest issue of the land, stood in his vestments of spotless snow under the shadow of giant trunks and the foliage of canopying branches. There he chanted in bardic measures the high themes of tradition. His harp resounded to the fervour with which he swept its chords. The steer of unblemished white, with gilded horns, awaited the sacrifice. The pillared altar sent up its wreaths to heaven. The misletoe, drooping from its hold, waved to the breeze, like a descending vision. The golden sickle embraced the prize, and the mystic pall, which contained the darker secrets revealed but to the few, received it. And then a greatness of conception might have been pleaded on behalf of this worship. Though art had been summoned to its aid, it was not the gentler beauties, it was the more imposing forms. The cromlech survives, in wild and massive grandeur, to our time: and whether the temple, tribunal, or cemetery, how much truer to the genius of * See Herodotus, Melpomene. The course of this system is historically traced from Scythia to Delos. religion, and the notion of Deity, than the costly | personation of your fancy, and even the ignorant and elaborate piles of the civilised world. Besides, these priests were versed in letters; were acquainted in some degree with the structure and mechanism of the material universe; and taught by their minstrelsy many political and virtuous lessons. They knew well to weave the tissues of poetry, and at their eloquence nations flew to arms. They were the depositaries of science and art; history even lived but in them. Could an opponent to Christian missions have lurked in those days under a Christian name, he would probably have suggested as plausible objections to the scheme of the British mission, as some we have been fated to hear against our own, "Why disturb them because they worship God according to the custom of their sires? They are not idolaters, for all their adorations terminate on their Esus. They are not so ignorant as you report, for there is a mine of philosophy in their fables and strains more pregnant and wealthy than the deep-hid ores which sparkle beneath their sacred resorts. They are most happy and content. Travellers tell of their sports and dances. A more harmless and simple race cannot be found: and withal, they have the means of improvement should they desire it. Geometry, poetry, music, rhetoric, legislation, government, botany, and astronomy, are more common among them than you have been led to believe. If any evils do prevail they would soon find a remedy: a self-corrective may be perceived to grow out of the very system. It now approximates to pure theism : it involves genuine science: it is clothed with almost every literary adornment. If there be any present incongruity in the parts, they will soon attain a poise as exact, and a stability as undecaying, as the trembling but unsubverted adamants which they alone can rear. You only need to know them to exchange pity for admiration. Plato never taught purer sentiments: Numa never founded juster laws: Archimedes never constructed more wondrous monuments. You are carried away by a popular excitement. Take care how you meddle with what you will not find it easy to improve. Take care how you transport that, which is all very well for us and very proper for ourselves, to a people of perfectly different usages and prejudices; who have a higher hierarchy of their own held in most deserved veneration; who are as wise, good, and indeed as happy with their opinions as others that could be mentioned: who have never sought your interference, and might as properly and soberly bring their religion to you as you can carry yours to them. You will find some strong reasons to controvert; their case is not so naked of proof, their code so founded on absurdity, as you suppose. Let nothing we say be construed into a doubt of our convictions, nor be tortured into a censure of your motives. But you will find the painted savage, as you call him, a very different being from the Druid, a more adroit antagonist than you have our no longer waves over priest or altar; no longer rustles to harp or song of that superstition which once found protection in its majesty, and drew solemnity from its shadow. It supplies the rooftree of our Christian sanctuaries, and, "descending to the main," bears our Christian missionaries through seas and storms to the ends of the earth. Our fathers were " ashamed of the oaks which they had desired." The circle of pendent rocks, which once surrounded our plains as the diadem of a spiritual domination, may still be traced, but it is rent and prostrated, and seems to preserve the last groan of that tyranny in the winds which murmur as they eddy around it. Christianity was in this manner established, and though it may often have had to shelter itself in the mountain defile, there was a crypt for the deposit, there was a fold for the flock. The Tenth persecution extended to our native converts, and it was reserved for the honour of our early as well as later churches to augment the noble army of martyrs; whilst the last burst of that storm, which had swept over other countries, dashed down upon our own. Christianity had to withstand successive delusions, to destroy the idolatrous hydra. The Roman brought his Pantheon. The Saxon and the Dane came with their Odin, Frea, and Thor. The Scald displaced the Druid, and chanted his sanguinary fables where his rival's harp had been struck to less "heroic strains. Yet did our religion maintain itself against these reiterated aggressions, and when it fell back it was nobly supported, until it found a rampart of defence in summits which the enemy and the avenger might not pass. It should never be forgotten that the trafficker in slaves at this very time supplied from our kidnapped countrymen his distant marts, that the man-hunter prowled in our woods and plains; yet even that scourge, which never fails to demoralise and imbrute the suffering nation, even that could not extirpate the faith of the truth by which Christ had made us free. And when anti-christ uncovered its names of blasphemy, absorbing and identifying every precedent of idolatrous rite and dotage, there were some who worshipped not its image. The Christianity which was planted among us was not distorted and withering, but healthy and vigorous: it was no sickly scion, but an offshoot from the tree of life: the parent sap was long retained: it struck a deep root into our soil: and its leaves were for the healing of our nation.-Rev. R. W. Hamilton. AVOID INJURIES. As there are none so weak that we may venture to injure them with impunity, so there are none so low that they may not at some time be able to repay an obligation. He that would not bruise even a worm, will be still more cautious how he treads upon a serpent.-Colton. RIGHTS OF THE ABORIGINES TO THE SOIL OF THEIR BIRTH. 113 Spanish Colonists taking possession of a Brazilian District.-Drawn on the spot, by M. RUGENDAS. Ir is perhaps difficult to define accurately what are the relative natural rights of nations occupying large tracts of country which they scarcely attempt to improve or cultivate, but who, if confined within the limits of their hunting and fishing grounds, suffer in consequence; and strangers, who, possessing the knowledge and the will needful to call forth all the resources of the country, demand at least a share of it. That the whole earth should in progress of time be cultivated, and all its products turned, in some shape, to the use of man, seems undeniably to be PART II.NO. VIII. accordant to the scheme of Providence. The rights of all nations to the countries over which they claim dominion are founded upon their being the prior occupants, and applying them to some kind of use. Still, what is to be accounted occupation, and the nature of the use made of the land in question, which suffices to give a property in it, is in all cases, when dominion is claimed by uncivilized inhabitants, difficult to be exactly discriminated. It is by no means one of the least curious attributes of humanity, that in all cases, at least in all which we ever heard of, the natives of uncivilized countries have, until some cause of offence has been given by their visitors, always shown themselves I |