BABYLON AND PERSIA

BABYLON THE GREAT. 249of the reign of Nebuchadrezzar, the sender (atKutha) and the payer (at Borsip) are named, butnot the payee: it is a cheque " to bearer."* Thatsuch documents were negotiable, like our own let¬ters of exchange or cheques, /. c., could be indorsedand exchanged for their value in gold or silver(discounted), and that in very ancient times, isshown by a bilingual text (Accadian and Assy¬rian), which says: "His mandatenot paid, butyet to be senthe exchanged against silver."fThese are real banking-operations, the invention ofwhich has always been attributed to the Jewishfinanciers of the Middle Ages, and which it is quitestartling to see in familiar operation among theirancestors or kindred over twenty centuries beforethem."And yet," remarks Lenormant,^: " if we stop to consider thepeculiar conditions under which the commerce of the Assyrians andBabylonians was carried on, we shall be able to account for this atfirst sight, strange fact ; we shall understand the causes which ledthese nations to invent the draft or exchange system so much earlierthan others. Their trade, from the geogr.aphical position of theircountries, was necessarily carried on liy land, by means of caravanswhich had to traverse, in all directions, deserts infested by nomadicrobbers. In such conditions, one of the merchant's first cares wasto find a way to avoid the transporting of money in cash to distantpoints. Every thing made it desirable to find such a w.ay : the cum¬bersome nature of metallic values, the number of beasts of burden,required to carry great quantities of it, as well as the unsafe roads.Therefore, as soon as there was a creditor at one end of a caravanline and a debtor at the other, the idea of the draft-system must havedawned on the mind of the creditor. This is so natural that a re¬newal of the same conditions gave rise to the same results, after a* " La Monnaie dans I'Antiquite," vol. I., p. 120.//'., p. 119. I //,., pp. 121, 122.