CHAPTER V.

The Saracens as a Maritime Nation-The Narratives of Soleiman, Massoudi, Abulfeda, Edrisi, and Ibn Batuta-The Traditional Voyage to America of Madoc-The Search for the Land of Gog and Magog.

ABOUT the beginning of the sixth century, when the Eastern, or Byzantine, portion of the dismembered Roman Empire was assailed by the Saracens, Mathuvius, a Saracen chief, fitted out a powerful fleet and conquered the Island of Cyprus, and then seized upon the Island of Rhodes, whence he conveyed away the materials of which the famous Colossus* had been formed.

When the Saracens, in their rapid career

*This stupendous figure was made of brass, and passed for one of the seven wonders of the world. Its feet were upon the two moles at the entrance of the harbour, and ships passed in full sail beneath it, its height being about 105 feet. Some years after its construction, it was overturned by an earthquake, 224 B.C., and, as the Rhodians had a superstitious opinion that it should never be used for any other purpose, they allowed the fallen statue to remain on the ground; the Saracens, however, had no such scruples, but broke it up, and loaded 900 camels with the metal, which they sold to a Jewish merchant for £36,000 English. A winding staircase ran up to the top, from which it was said the distant shores of Syria, and the ships of Egypt as they traversed the Bay of Alexandria, could be discerned by means of glasses suspended from the neck of the statue. The image remained in ruins for nearly 900 years, although the people of Rhodes had collected large sums of money for its repair. This money, however, they seem to have appropriated; which was, perhaps, the true reason why they feigned or felt reluctance to raise up the image, and pretended that the oracle of Delphi forbade it.

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of conquest, reached the Euphrates, they immediately perceived the advantage to be derived from an emporium situated upon a river which opened a route to India, and an extensive inland navigation through a wealthy country; and Bussorah, which they built A.D. 636, on the west bank of the Shatt-ul-Arab, which signifies the river of the Arabs,' soon became a great commercial city, and entirely cut off the independent part of Persia from the Oriental trade. The Arabian merchants of Bussorah extended their discoveries far beyond the tracks of all preceding navigators, and imported directly many Indian articles, hitherto procured at second hand in Ceylon, called Taprobane, and then exported them to the nations of the West. The victorious Saracens, by their conquests, deprived Heraclius, the emperor of the East, of the wealthy, and, in some degree, commercial province of Syria. The little commerce now remaining to the Roman Empire also fell into their hands, with the city of Alexandria and the province of Egypt. A few years afterwards, the ancient canal between the Nile and the Red Sea is said to have been cleared out, and again rendered navigable, by Amrou, the Arabian conqueror and governor of Egypt, in order to furnish a shorter and cheaper conveyance for the corn and other bulky produce of the country.

After the attempt made by Amrou, fresh efforts were made by the Saracens to connect the Mediterranean and Red Seas, by means of a navigable canal, a purpose sought to be accomplished in various ages of the world, by people who have given their attention to maritime affairs. Many thousands of human beings have perished at different times in labouring to cut through this neck of land. The Ptolemys of Egypt, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Saracens, have all attempted, but failed

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to effect the object. The French, when in Egypt, under Napoleon, traced out the ancient line, and, as all the world knows, M. de Lesseps has earned for himself and his nation immortal renown by actually carrying through the great work in the face of the adverse prognostications of English engineers, and the opposition of British statesmen, of whom Lord Palmerston was the most persistent. Probably no engineering work of ancient or modern times has worked such incalculable advantage to the human family.

About the year 670, the Saracens, whose fleets now rode triumphant in the Mediterranean, and who had already taken possession of Cyprus, Rhodes, and many of the Grecian islands, laid siege, for the first time, to Constantinople. For seven years they annually renewed the siege by sea and land, with varying success, but were ultimately repulsed, after the loss of 30,000 men and most of their ships. Their defeat was, in a great measure, brought about by the invention of a peculiar mode of offensive warfare, called the 'Greek fire,' which was then used for the first time by Callinicus, a Syrian Greek.

During the dark ages, after the destruction of the Roman Empire, the Christians of Europe were excluded from almost every channel by which the precious goods of the East had formerly been conveyed to them. An

* Gibbon supposes that it consisted principally of naphtha, a kind of liquid pitch, of a highly combustible nature, which springs out of the earth; this was mixed with sulphur, and a kind of turpentine extracted from evergreen firs. Sometimes it was poured down from the ramparts from large boilers, sometimes javelins and arrows were wrapped round with tow dipped in this mixture; and at other times it was deposited in fire-ships, from which it was, by some contrivance, blown upon the enemy through long tubes. When once kindled, nothing could stop the flame, and water fed instead of extinguishing it.

inveterate antipathy, inflamed by religious bigotry, which made the Christians consider the Mahommedans as the enemies of God, while they, on the other hand, abhorred the Christians as Infidels, was almost an insuperable bar to commercial intercourse. But the mutual alienation produced little or no inconvenience to the Saracens, who found ample scope for commercial enterprise within the vast extent of their own dominions. Owing to the scanty supply of Oriental goods, some Arab merchants were tempted by the enhanced price to traverse the vast extent of Asia in a latitude beyond the northern boundary of the Saracenic power, and to import by caravans the silks of China, and the valuable spices of India; these, notwithstanding their enormous price, were eagerly purchased by the luxurious and wealthy courtiers of Constantinople, whose demands for silk the manufacturers of Greece were not capable of supplying to their full extent. For ship-building purposes the Saracens employed the timber from the forests which clad the sides of the mountains of Lebanon, which had furnished materials for building the fleets of Tyre and Sidon in the infancy of navigation.

About the year 850, Soleiman, an Arabian merchant, wrote an account of the state of the maritime commerce between the Arabians and Chinese. He says that in his time the Arabian merchants had extended their commerce and their discoveries in the East, far beyond the utmost knowledge of the Greek merchants of Egypt, or the Ethiopian merchants of Adulis, near Massowah. Their vessels now traded to every part of the Asiatic continent, as far as the south coast of China, and to many of the islands. Soleiman speaks of the Chinese, of whom scarcely anything was at that time known to the Western world. He says: When foreign vessels

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arrive at Can-fu (supposed to be Canton), the Chinese take possession of their cargoes, and store them in warehouses till the arrival of all the other ships which are expected, whereby they are sometimes detained six months. They then levy a tax of thirty per cent. on the goods in kind, and restore the remainder to the merchants. The emperor has the right of pre-emption, but his officers, fairly and immediately, pay for what he takes at the highest price of the articles. Chinese ships trade to Siraf by the Persian Gulf, and there take in goods brought from Bussorah, Oman, and other places, to which they do not venture to proceed on account of the frequent storms and other dangers in that sea.' Soleiman mentions, though it appears almost incredible, especially if we regard the total absence of trade between China and the Persian Gulf in the present day, that 'sometimes there were 400 Chinese vessels together in the Persian Gulf, loaded with gold, silks, precious stones, musk, porcelain, copper, alum, nutmegs, cloves, and cinnamon.' At the period to which these accounts refer, the Saracens had removed their principal seat of commerce almost entirely to the Persian Gulf, which is sometimes called the Green Sea, from the appearance of Pearls were from time immemorial obtained from these parts, to which the poet Moore alludes in the song of the Peri:

its water.

'Farewell-farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!

(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea ;) No pearl ever lay, under Oman's green water, More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.'

Here also was said to be found the star-fish, which was luminous, referred to by the same poet when singing the dirge

Of her who lies sleeping among the pearl islands,

With naught but the sea-star to light up her tomb.'