feveral centuries, after the ufe of it became common, any certain knowledge, either of the countries to which they were indebted for this favourite arti cle of elegance, or of the manner in which it was produced. By fome, filk was fuppofed to be a fine down, adhering to the leaves of certain trees or flowers; others imagined it to be a delicate fpecies of wool or cotton; and even thofe who had learned that it was the work of an infect, fhew, by their defcriptions, that they had no distinct idea of the manner in which it was formed. It was in confequence of an event that happened in the fixth century of the Christian æra, of which I fhall hereafter take notice, that the real nature of filk became known in Europe. The other commodities ufually imported from India, will be mentioned in the account which I now proceed to give, of the carg es fent out and brought home in the fhips employed in that trade. For this we are indebted to the circumnavigation of the Erythræan fea, afcribed to Arrian, a curious though short treatise, less known than it deferves to be, and which enters into fome details concerning commerce, to which there is nothing fimilar in any ancient writer. The first place in India, in which the fhips from Egypt, while they followed the ancient courfe of navigation, were accustomed to trade, was Patala in the river Indus. They imported into it woollen cloth of a flight fabric, linen in chequer work, fome precious ftones, and fome aromatics unknown in India, coal, ftorax, glafs veffels of different kinds, fome wrought filver, money, and wine. In return for thefe, they received fpices of va rious kinds, fapphires, and other gems, filk ftuffs, filk thread, cotton cloths, and black pepper. But a far more confiderable emporium on the fame coaft was Barygaza, and on that account the author, whom I follow here, defcribes its fituation, and the mode of approaching it, with great minutenefs and accuracy. Its fituation correfponds entirely with that of Baroach, on the great river Nerbuddah, down the stream of which, or by land-carriage, from the great city of Tagara acrafs high mountains, all the productions of the interior country were conveyed to it. The articles of importation and exportation in this great mart were extenfive and various. Befides thefe already mentioned, our author enumerates, among the former, Italian, Greek, and Arabian wines, brafs, tin, lead, girdles, or fafhes of curious texture, melilot, white glafs, red arfenic, black lead, gold and fil. ver coin. Among the exports he mentions the onyx, and other gems, ivory, myrrh, various fabrics af cotton, both plain and ornamented with flowers, and long pepper. At Mufiris, the next emporium of note on that coaft, the articles imported were much the fame as at Barygaza; but as it lay nearer to the eastern parts of India, and feems to have had much communication with them, the commodities exported from it were more numerous and more valuable. He fpecifies particularly pearls in great abundance and of extraordinary beauty, a variety of filk ftuffs, rich perfumes, tortoilehell, different kinds of tranfparent gems, efpecially diamonds, and pepper in large quantities, and of the beft quality. The juftnefs of the account given by this author of the articles imported from India, is confirmed by a Roman law in which the Indian commodities fubject to the payment of duties are enumerated. By compairing these two accounts, we may form an idea, toltrably exact, of the nature and extent of the trade with India in ancient times. As the ftate of fociety and manners among the natives of India, in the carlieft period in which they are known, nearly refembled what we obferve among their defcendants in the prefent age, the wants and demands were were of courfe much the fame. The ingenuity of their own artists was fo able to fupply thefe, that they ftood little in need of foreign manufactures or productions, except fome of the ufeful metals, which their own country did not furnish in fufficient quantity; and then, as now, it was mostly with gold and filver that the luxuries of the Eaft were purchased. In two particulars, however, our importacions from India differ greatly from thofe of the ancients. The drefs, both of the Greeks and Romans, was almost entirely woollen, which, by their frequent ufe of the warm bath, was rendered abundantly comfortable. Their confumption of linen and cotton cloths was much inferior to that of modern times, when these are worn by perfons in every rank of life. Accordingly, a great branch of modern importation from that part of India with which the ancients were acquainted, is in piece-goods; comprehending, under that mercantile term, the immenfe variety of fabrics, which Indian ingenuity has formed of cotton. But, as far as I have obferved, we have no authority that will justify us in ftating the ancient importation of these to be in any degree confiderable. In modern times, though it continuses ftill to be chiefly a commerce of luxury that is carried on with India, yet, together with the articles that minifter to it, we import, to a confiderable extent, various commodities, which are to be confidered merely as the materials of our domestic manufactures. Such are the cotton-wool of Indoftan, the filk of China, and the falt-petre of Bengal. But in the accounts of ancient importations from India, raw filk and filk-thread excepted, I find nothing mentioned that could ferve as the materials of any home-manufacture. The navigation Remarks on the Mode in which the Ancients conducted their Discoveries, and the Confidence their Accounts of them are entitled to ↑. TH HE art of delineating maps, exhibiting either the figure of the whole earth, as far as it had been explored, or that of particular countries, was known to the ancients; and without the use of them to affift the imagination, it was impoffible to have formed a distinct idea either of the one or of the other. Some of thefe maps are mentioned by Herodotus, and other early Greek writers. But no maps prior to those which were formed, in order to illuftrate the geography of Ptolemy, have reached our times, in confequence of which it is very difficult to conceive what was the relative fituation of the different places mentioned by the ancient geographers, unlefs when it is precifely afcertained by measurement. As foon, however, as the mode of marking the fituation of each place, by fpecifying its longitude and latitude, was introduced, and came to be generally adopted, every pofition could be defcribed in compendious and fcientific terms. But ftill the accuracy of this new method, and the improvement which geography derived from it, depeads upon the made in which the anE 2 From the fame, ፡ cients cients eftimated the latitude and longitude of places. Though the ancients proceeded in determining the latitude and longitude of places upon the fame principles with the moderns, yet it was by means of inftruments very inferior in their construction to thofe now ufel, and without the fame minute attention to every circumstance that may affect the accuracy of an obfervation, an artenron of which long experience only can demonftrate the neceffity. It order to afcertain the latitude of any place, the ancients obferved the meridian altitude of the fan, either by means of the fhadow of a perpendicuJar gnomon, or by means of an altro labe, from which it was eafy to compute how ntany degrees and minutes the place of obfervation was diftant from the Equator. When neither of thefe methods could be employed, they inferred the latitude of any place from the best acc nuts which they could procure of the length of its longest day. of the operations which I have mentioned, could determine the pofition of places with a confiderable degree of accuracy at land, it is very uncertain whether or not they had any proper mode of determining this at fea. The navigators of antiquity feem rarely to have had recourfe to aftronomical obfervation. They had no inftruments fuited to a moveable and unfteady obfervatory; and though, by their practice of landing frequently, they might, in fome nfeature, have fupplied that def &, yet no ancient author, as far, as I know, has given an account of any aftronomical obrvation made by them during the courfe of their voyages. It teems to be evident from Ptolemy, who employs fome chapters in fhewing how geography may be improved, and its errors may be rectified, from the reports of navigators, that ali their calculations were founded 'folely upon reckoning, and were not the refult of obfervation. Even after all the improvements which the moderns have made in the fcience of navigation, this With respect to determining the mode of computing by reckoning is longitude of any place, they were known to be fo toole and uncertain, much more at a lois, as there was cri-, that, from it alone, no conciution can ly one fet of celeftial phenomena to be deduced with any great degree of which they could have recourfe. precision. Among the ancients, this Thefe were the ecliples of the moon inaccuracy muit have been greatly (for those of the fun were not fo well angmented, as they were accultomed understood as to be fablermeat to the, in their voyages, instead of steering a purpofes of geography :) the que rence between the ume a winch de eclipfe was obf rved to begin or so end at two different places, gave idares diately the difference between the weridians of thote places. But the t ficulty of making to fe optervations with accuracy, and the impofitality of repeating them often, reader ed them of fo little ute in ge, graphy, that the ancients in deteta.ntay longitudes were obliged, for the noir part, to have recourfe to actual furveys, or to the vagne information which was to be obtained from the reckonings of failGIS, or the itineraries of travellers. But tough the ancients, by means direct crurfe which might have been sore cafily measured, to a circuitous navigation along the coaft; and were Lacquainted with the compafs, or any other inftrument by which is Dings might have been afcertained. We find accordingly the position of many places which we may fuppone to have been determined at lea, fixed with little exactnets. When, in confequence of an active trade, the ports of any country were much frequented, the reckonings of different navigators may have ferved in fome meafute to correct each other, and may have enabled geographers to form their conclufion's with a nearer approximation to to truth. But in remote countries, which have neither been the feat of military operations, nor explored by caravans travelling frequently through them, every thing is more vague and undefined, and the refemblance between the ancient defcriptions of them, and their actual figure, is often fo faint that it can hardly be traced. The latitude of places too, as might be expected, was in general much more accurately known by the ancients than their longitude. The obfervations by which the former was determined are fimple, made with eafe, and are not liable to much error. The other cannot be ascertained precifely, without more complex operat ons, and the ufe of inftruments much more perfect than any that the ancients feem to have poffeffed. Among the vaft number of places, the polition of which is fixed by Ptolemy, I know not if he approaches as near to truth in the longitude of any one, as he has done in fixing the latitude of the three cities which I formerly mentioned as a striking, tho' not fingular, inftance of his exactnefs*. Thefe obfervations induce me to adhere to an opinion, which I propofed in another place, that the Greeks and Romans, in their commercial intercourfe with India, were fetdom led, either by curiouty or the love of gain, to vifit the more eaftern parts of it. A variety of particulars occur to confirm this opinion. Though Ptolemy beftows the appellation of Emporia on feveral places fituated on the coast, which ftretches from the eastern mouth of the Ganges to the extremity of the Golden Cherfoncfus, it is uncertain, as I formerly observed, whether, from his having given them this name, we are to confider them as harbours frequented by fips from Egypt, or merely by veffels of the country. Beyond the Golden Cherfonefus, it is remarkable that he mentions on Em * porium only, which plainly indicates the intercourfe with this region of India to have been very inconfiderable. Had voyages from the Arabian Gulf to thofe countries of India been as frequent as to have entitled Ptolemy to ipecify fo minutely the longitude and latitude of the great number of places which he mentions, he muft, in confequence of this, have acquired fuch information as would have prevented feveral great errors into which he has fallen. Had it been usual to double Cape Comorin, and to fail up the Bay of Bengal to the mouth of the Ganges, fome of the ancient geographers would not have been so uncertain, and others fo widely miftaken,' with refpect to the fituation and magnitude of the island of Ceylon. If the merchants of Alexandria had often vifited the ports of the Golden Cherfonefus, and of the Great Bay, Ptolemy's defcriptions of them must have been rendered tote correfpondent to their real forin, nor could he have believed feveral places to lie beyond the line, which are in truth fome degrees on this fie of it. But though the navigation of the ancients may not have extended to the farther Iadin, we are certain that various commodities of that country were imported into Egypt, and thence were conveyed to Rome, and to other parts of the empire. From circumítances which I have already enumerated, we are warranted in concluding, that these were brought in veffels of the country to Eufiris, and to the other ports on the Malabar coaft, which were, at that period, the ftaples of trade with Egypt. In a country of fuch extent as India, where the natural productions are various, and greatly diverfi. fied by art and induftry, an active domeftic commerce, both by fea and by land, must have early taken place among its different provinces. Of this we Nagara, (the modern Attack) Maracanda, (Samarcand) and Sera Metropolis, (Kantcheou.) we have fome hints in ancient authors; and where the fources of infor. mation are fo few and fo fcanty, we muft reft fatisfied with hints. Among the different claffes, or cafts, into which the people of India were divided, merchants are mentioned as one, from which we may conclude trade to have been one of the established Occupations of men in that country. From the Author of the Circumnavigation of the Erythræan Sea, we learn that the inhabitants of the Coromandel coaft traded in veffels of their own with thofe of Malabar; that the interior trade of Barygaza was confiderable; and that there was, at all feafons, a number of country fhips to be found in the harbour of Mufiris. By Strabo we are informed, that the moft valuable productions of Taprobane were carried to different Emporia of India. In this way the traders from Egypt might be fapplied with them, and thus could finish the voyages within the year, which must have been protractted much longer if they had extended as far towards the east as is generally fuppofed. From all this it appears to be probable, that Ptolemy derived the information concerning the eastern parts of India, upon which he founds his calculations, not fo much from any direct and regular intercourfe between Egypt and thefe countries, as from the reports of a few adventarers, whom an enterprifing fpirit, or the love of gain, prompted to proceed beyond the ufual limits of naviga tion. the Eaft by fea, or the progrefs which was made in the difcovery of its remote regions. Under Juftinian, Cofmas, an Egyptian merchant, in the courfe of his traffic, made fome voyages to India, whence he acquired the firname of Indicopleuftes; but afterwards, by a tranfition not uncommon in that fuperftitious age, he renounced all the concerns of this life, and affumed the monaftic character. In the folitude and leifure of a cell, he compofed feveral works, one of which, dignified by him with the name of Chriftian Topography, has reached us. The main defign of it is to combat. the opinion of thofe philofophers, who affert the earth to be of a spherical figure, and to prove that it is an oblong plane, of twelve thousand miles in length from caft to weft, and of fix thousand miles in breadth from north to fouth, furrounded by high walls, covered by the firmament as with a canopy or vault: that the viciffitude of day and night was occafioned by a mountain of prodigious height, fituaed in the extremities of the north, round which, the fun moved; that when it appeared on one fide of this mountain, the earth was illuminated; when concealed on the other fide, the earth was left involved in darkness. But amid thofe wild reveries, more fuited to the credulity of his new profeffion, than to the found fenfe characteriftic of that in which he was formerly engaged, Cofmas feems to relate what he himself had obferved in his travels, or what he had learned from others, with great fimplicity and regard for truth. 1 Though, from the age of Ptolemy, the trade with India continued to be. He appears to have been well accarried on in its former channel, and quainted with the weft coaft of the Inboth Rome, the ancient capital of the din peninfula, and names feveral places empire, and Conftantinople, the new fated upon it; he defcribes it as feat of government, were fupplied with the chief feat of the pepper trade, and the precious commodities of that coun- mentions Male, in particular, as one try by the merchants of Alexandria, of the most frequented ports on that yet, until the reign of the emperor accoun. From Male, it is probable Juftinian, we have no new informa- that this fide of the Continent has detion concerning the intercourfe with rived its modern name of Malabar ; and |