India beyond the Ganges, from the days of Moses, Alexander, and Aristotle, to say nothing of the geographers Pomponius Mela, Strabo, and Ptolemy, was deemed the land of promise, the abode of luxury, the source of wealth, and the home of the Spices but the routes of com merce thither, via Venice and Genoa, by the Red Sea, Egypt, the Nile, Arabia, Asia Minor, the Black and Caspian Seas, through Persia and Tartary, were one by one being closed to Chris tians. The profits of the overland carrying trade were mostly in the hands of the Arabians, who inherited it from the Romans; but Mem phis, Thebes, and Cairo, that ?ourished by it, had declined as it fell otf, and yielded to Alex andria nearer the sea. Finally. In 1453, Constan tinople, the Christian city of Constantine, fell into the hands of the Turks, and with it the commerce of the Black Sea and the Bosphorus, the last of the old trading routes from the East to the Test. Christendom for a time was dis consolate, and could only pray for the conter itiou of the Turks. The whole of the carrying trade passed into the hands of middle men or agents, who passed goods without news, and India became more a land of mystery than ever; but this apparent misfortune proved to be the beginning of a new and brighter era.
