Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

INTRODUCTION.
"When King Solomon, in the early part of the tenth century B. C, had
opened relations with the Saheans of the Southern coast of Arabia, the
land of Punt of the Egyptians, he sent his ships from the head of the Red
Sea to the land of Ophir, — generally believed to have been Guzerat or the
s Malabar coast. Already at that remote time trade by sea was active between
the ports on the south coast of Arabia, the principal of which was where
Aden now stands, and Western India. The ships of the Sabeans carried the
products of Arabia and India to the heads of the Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf. By the former route they reached the cities of the Phoenicians; by the
10 latter they came to Media and Nineveh.
Although some accurate particulars concerning the sea-route between
the Indus and the head of the Red Sea must have reached the Greeks through
the voyages of Skylax of Karyanda, made about 512 B. C, it was not until
Alexander the Great's invasion of India in 327 B. C, that real knowledge
15 of this vast region and of the sea-route leading there was given to the Western
world. Notwithstanding the fact that the writers of the time of Alexander
make no mention of the considerable coasting trade which was carried on in
their time between the West and India through the medium of the Sabeans,
; they were certainly aware of its existence. We learn from Arrian^ that, at
20 the time of his death, Alexander was entertaining the scheme of following
up the explorations of Nearchus by another expedition to proceed fi-om the
mouth of the Euphrates to the head of the Red Sea, presumably for the
purpose of diverting the great profits of the sea trade between India and
Egypt from the Sabeans to the Greeks.
1) Hist. Indica, XLIIL