DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1035#0633
586 ON THE COMMUNICATION
severely felt by the merchants of those times, and greatly
curtailed their profits upon the commodities they imported.
And the avarice of the Egyptian Soltans, who were aware
of the immense advantages derived by the Venetians from
this important traffic, and who knew how greatly the com-
munication with India by Egypt was to be preferred to the
overland passage through central Asia, added to the exclu-
sive pretensions of the Venetians themselves, had attached
so exorbitant a price to everything imported into Europe,
that the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope was the
signal for almost immediately abandoning this channel, and
for the downfall of their trade. But the same objections do
not apply to this communication at the present day, and
the delays and dangers to which sailing ships were then
exposed on the Red Sea will now be removed by the in-
vention of steam.
Agatharcides, in speaking of this Gulf, justly observes
that the middle of the channel was the only safe part for
ships, and that it was the object of the ancient mariners to
keep as much as possible at a distance from the shore,
except at night, when it was necessary to make for some
port or creek, where their vessel might lie secure from the
effect of the winds and waves of an accidental storm. The
mouths of these ports * I have generally found to be open-
ings in the reefs that extend in a direction nearly parallel
with, and at a short distance from the shore; and the bank,
whose height varies from thirty to forty feet, and which in
these places frequently curves into the form of a crescent,
serves to defend them from the immediate effect of the wind.
They have also this advantage, that the water is not agitated
in the same manner behind the reefs as in the open sea; but
while they conveniently present a natural breakwater, they
* The "Portus Multi" of Pliny.
severely felt by the merchants of those times, and greatly
curtailed their profits upon the commodities they imported.
And the avarice of the Egyptian Soltans, who were aware
of the immense advantages derived by the Venetians from
this important traffic, and who knew how greatly the com-
munication with India by Egypt was to be preferred to the
overland passage through central Asia, added to the exclu-
sive pretensions of the Venetians themselves, had attached
so exorbitant a price to everything imported into Europe,
that the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope was the
signal for almost immediately abandoning this channel, and
for the downfall of their trade. But the same objections do
not apply to this communication at the present day, and
the delays and dangers to which sailing ships were then
exposed on the Red Sea will now be removed by the in-
vention of steam.
Agatharcides, in speaking of this Gulf, justly observes
that the middle of the channel was the only safe part for
ships, and that it was the object of the ancient mariners to
keep as much as possible at a distance from the shore,
except at night, when it was necessary to make for some
port or creek, where their vessel might lie secure from the
effect of the winds and waves of an accidental storm. The
mouths of these ports * I have generally found to be open-
ings in the reefs that extend in a direction nearly parallel
with, and at a short distance from the shore; and the bank,
whose height varies from thirty to forty feet, and which in
these places frequently curves into the form of a crescent,
serves to defend them from the immediate effect of the wind.
They have also this advantage, that the water is not agitated
in the same manner behind the reefs as in the open sea; but
while they conveniently present a natural breakwater, they
* The "Portus Multi" of Pliny.