repeatedly shifted its locality, while only a comparatively inconsiderable area of the globe was known to its most enlightened inhabitants.

The most ancient geographical records extant are contained in the Pentateuch of Moses. It is difficult and often impossible to identify many of the localities and communities named by the writer; but they were certainly included in the countries bordering the eastern side of the Mediterranean, and extending from thence to the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea. Still, it is clear, from the mention made of various products with which the Jewish legislator was familiar, that intercourse subsisted in his age between the banks of the Nile and the shores of Arabia and India, though maintained by no direct chain of communication. Morning and evening, incense was burned upon the altars of Jehovah from the time when Israel encamped in the wilderness, to the final desolation of Jerusalem. Three times a day in Egypt-as the solar glory appeared in the east, reached the zenith, and declined to the western horizon-the priests greeted the sun-god with offerings of perfume. At a later date, the disciples of Zoroaster in Persia honoured the luminary in a similar manner; and in all the temples of Greek and Roman idolatry

'Treasured odours breathed a costly scent,'

as gifts peculiarly acceptable to the imaginary beings which the sculptured marbles coldly personified.

The gum burned upon the incense altars-frankincense is a native production of Southern Arabia, as well as of India, where the tree yielding it grows much more luxuriantly. But the specification of cinnamon and cassia as in use is more significant. These spices were ingredients of the holy anointing oil of the tabernacle, which was employed in the act of consecration to the priesthood, at its institution in the wilderness. Both of the shrubs producing them are peculiar to Ceylon and the adjacent coasts of India. Hence it follows, that at the era of the Exodus intercourse had been opened between those regions and the Nile countries; and it can scarcely be doubted by whose agency it was carried on. The Hindus themselves are not, and have never been, a seafaring people. Enterprising individuals indeed among them may have conducted short coasting voyages, but the great body of the nation have ever recoiled from hazardous adventure, content to gaze passively upon the barrier of the ocean, without a wish to cross it. On the contrary, the Arabs of the coast, a people altogether different in their habits from those of the desert, have been from time immemorial active commercialists and mariners, in possession of ships and ports. To them the countries on the shores of the Mediterranean were in the first instance indebted for the spices and precious products of India, conveyed both by the way of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and from thence overland to the markets of Egypt and of Tyre. This gave rise to a popular error prevalent through all antiquity. It was imagined that the articles of luxury obtained through the medium of Arabian traders were the produce of their own soil; and hence a region composed largely of burning sands, with a pestilential climate, and only fertile tracts of limited extent, came to be distinguished by the still extant title of Arabia the Happy, Araby the Blest.

The earliest accounts on record of travelling, whether for domestic or commercial objects, are found in the sacred document referred to. In almost all of them a company of wayfarers is mentioned, and the camel is conspicuous. The stern realities of nature in vast tracts of country dividing different communities within the tropics, or bordering on them-dry and thirsty lands where no water is, but still the same burning sun, with a soil either of sterile rock or shifting sand, disdaining to hold a footprint as a testimony of subjection-an unsettled state of society, with bands of lawless rovers

whose hand is against every man, unless overawed by numbers, or expensive contributions purchase immunity from indiscriminate pillage-these circumstances have enforced the association of individuals in traversing such regions in all subsequent ages, both for mutual protection, and the provision of resources adequate for the journey. These companies, termed caravans, are now, as they have been since primitive times, the chief means by which the internal communication of Asia and Africa is conducted.

It is a striking instance of adaptation to particular circumstances, that an invaluable beast of burden has been bestowed upon the arid wastes, without which their passage would be to a great extent impossible under existing arrangements. The camel, perhaps, more than any other creature, exhibits a marked adaptation to a peculiar position. It appears as if Nature had been economical of material in the organisation of this animal, designed to range over districts affording the scantiest supply of nourishment. 'She has not given him the fulness of form of the ox, the horse, or the elephant; but, limiting him to the purely indispensable, she has bestowed upon him a small head, almost without external ears, supported by a fleshless neck. She has stripped his thighs and legs of every muscle not essential to their movements, and has furnished his dry and meagre body with only the vessels and tendons required to knit the framework together. She has supplied him with a powerful jaw to crush the hardest aliments; but that he might not consume too much, she has narrowed his stomach, and made him a ruminant. She has cushioned his foot with a mass of muscle, which, sliding in mud, and ill adapted for climbing, unfits him for every soil but a dry, even, and sandy surface. She has condemned him to servitude by refusing him all means of defence against his enemies.' Accordingly, the camel has been the ship of the desert from the dawn of history, employed in the transit of both passengers and goods. A vegetable native of the desert, the Camel's Thorn (Hedysarum alhagi), a prickly plant, occurs in profusion in various districts, and affords a similar beautiful exemplification of benevolent design. The animal browses upon it in preference to other products; its lasting verdure and bright crimson flowers delight the eye of the traveller in the unfriendly wastes; and its property of collecting by deep-searching roots the scanty moisture of the plains, is made subservient to the production of nourishment for man. The Arab divides the stem of the plant in spring near the root. A seed of the water-melon is then inserted in the fissure, and the soil replaced. The seed becomes a parasite. The moisture which it could not collect for itself is supplied by the farpenetrating roots of the plant which sustains it, and thus a crop of water-melons is periodically raised from a soil incapable of other culture.

Oriental manners and customs have been remarkably permanent; and hence a modern caravan is in its principal features a picture of an ancient one. The travellers follow each other in single or double file; and form a line of procession of considerable length along the great routes, where numbers of mere wayfarers, religious pilgrims, and merchants journey together for safety and convenience. If there are horsemen, as is usually the case, the camels have to carry skins of water for the horses, as well as for the passengers, for there is frequently no other source of supply for several days together. Water is a daily want with the horse; but the camel will go three or four days without it, drinking only at the wells or reservoirs, and is capable of enduring even a ten days' thirst. The halts are made whenever practicable at watering-places, where there is some verdure, shade, and the song of birds. In many places the bleached bones of dead camels form a line of landmarks, and indicate with melancholy exactness the route to be pursued.

The chieftainship of a caravan was deemed an honourable office by the ancients, and its safe-conduct a very creditable achievement. Previous to starting, its principal members elected a leader and head, a man of experience in travelling, well acquainted

with the direction, and qualified by firmness and conciliation to deal with the wild tribes by the way. By a prosperous journey, he established a claim to gratitude; and after several, a kind of honorary title was in some instances conferred, similar to that of Imperator, with which the Roman legions greeted a successful general. Inscriptions at Palmyra supply information to this effect. Thus one commemorates Aurelius Zehida, who discharged his office of conductor with great credit while leading a company of merchants from that city to Vologesia, a town on the Euphrates, in order to attend the markets held there. Another is in honour of a certain Schalmalath, who is expressly said to have been a Jew, and whose services had procured for him a statue, as well as an inscription, erected by the senate and people of the city. The inscriptions were found in the court of the Temple of the Sun, the tutelar divinity of the place. This court is a spacious square area, capable of holding an entire encampment of Arabs, and paved throughout with marble. The temple stood in the centre, and outside are colonnades with numerous apartments. At the entrance are two large tanks, eight feet deep, furnished with steps to go down to the water. Its modern name is the Court of Camels. The name and the arrangements sanction the surmise, that as the commercial interests of the city were supposed to be under the special protection of the tutelary deity, the Hence it caravans wended their way to the temple on arriving, and started from it. had appurtenances for their accommodation, answering the purpose of a caravanserai: the apartments being for the passengers; the court and tanks for the beasts of burden, and the goods they conveyed.

The rise of a splendid city like Palmyra in the heart of the wilderness, surrounded on all sides by an inhospitable desert of rock and sand, seems an anomaly, but is susceptible of an easy and natural explanation. It was founded by Solomon under the name of Both Tadmor, by which its ruins are at present known to the neighbouring tribes. names signify the city of palm-trees. The site is an oasis, furnished with an abundant supply of wholesome water. Lying in the direct route of the caravans between Central and Western Asia, its copious fountains and shady palms rendered it peculiarly eligible for a long halt during a wearisome pilgrimage. But such a resting-place would speedily become a mart, by merchants from the east and west meeting at the spot, exchanging commodities, and thus shortening their respective journeys. In order to profit by this commerce, Solomon, who had a strong appetite for wealth, and sagacity to apprehend the means of acquiring it, founded Tadmor, furnished it with accommodation for traffic and traders; and might obtain his own remuneration both by the levy of customs' duties, and by employing factors to buy up and re-sell the wares. In a similar manner, for the mutual accommodation of merchants of different countries, shortening their journeys, marts were established at convenient points on the great commercial routes. They gradually grew up into cities, and went to decay upon commerce shifting its direction. Such we may conclude were Petra in the Edomite defile, Baalbec in Hollow Syria, Gerasa and Gadara on the margin of the desert beyond Jordan.

But regular commercial journeys were made extending three thousand miles or more, and requiring the space of three years for their accomplishment, going and returning. Thus caravans started from Barygaza in Western India, now Baroatch in the presidency of Bombay, and from Western Asia, bound to the frontiers of China, for raw and spun silk and silk stuffs. The earliest notice of the former occurs in a writer of the fourth century before the Christian era; and Greeks from Cilicia are named as taking part in the latter. The two companies of adventurers met in the high mountain region eastward of Bokhara, near the significantly called Roof of the World, the loftiest plateau of the old continent, and thence descended together into the great Mongolian desert. The rendezvous, obviously