222 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY help of the magnificent remains which have from time to time been discovered in the southern regions watered by the Nile and its tributary streams, it has been found possible to re-establish some of the great trade routes which were used by Meroe in the days of her prosperity. In briefly indicating them I follow the account given by Heeren in his " Historical Researches."

There can be no doubt that from a very early period maritime commerce existed between India, Arabia, and the East African coasts. Probably at an even earlier period Chinese navigators frequented the shores of Africa.

Marmol, writing of the East Coast of Africa in the sixteenth century, says: ** There was a time when the Chinese navigated these shores as freely as the Portuguese now do," and his statement obtains some modern corroboration from the fact that at the excavation, about twenty-five years ago, of Kilwa, once the capital of a native empire, upon the east coast of Africa, where three towns were superimposed upon one another, the lowest town was found to be full of Chinese coins.

Commerce between the countries lying on the shores of the Indian Ocean was favoured by the fact, thus recorded by an ancient writer, that for *' one half of the year, from spring to autumn, the wind regularly sets in and wafts the vessels from Arabia to India ; the other half, from autumn to spring, it as regularly carries them back from India to Arabia." Arrian, in his '' Periplus of the Erythrean Sea," written in the first century of our era, speaking of the commerce, which was then, of course, a matter of ancient, though also of contemporary history, says : *' Before merchants sailed from Egypt to India, Arabia Felix was the staple (or market) both for Egyptian and Indian goods, just as Alexandria now is for the commodities of Egypt and foreign merchandise." The Indians nowhere appear as navigators ; the Arabians always do. It seems to be demonstrated that they possessed the navigation of the Indian Ocean, not only in our own medieval times,