$06 COMMERCE WITH pelled by the spirit infused into them by a new religion, and by the little portion which they had imbibed of the knowledge of the Greeks, appear, on the conquest of Egypt and Persia, to have taken a "-reater and more active share in the com- merce of India, and to have carried it on from both Gulfs. Two centuries after this, we have the first tolerably authentic account that the Arabs had reached the Indian islands. In the year 850, at least, they traded between Oman on the Persian Gulf, and China, and were even settled in consi- derable numbers in the latter country. They must, of course, have passed through the Indian islands, and traded with them still earlier. The notices which the Arabian traveller and his commentator give of theirtrade are indeed most vague and puerile, and readily excite a suspicion that the intercourse which could supply no better could neither have been very extensive, nor conducted by persons of much intelligence. * It was not until four centu-
- The commentator confuses together the islands of
the Indian and Japanese Archipelagos. By the island Cala, it is evident he means the principal emporium at this time of the commerce with the west, possibly the port of Batavia under the Chinese name of Ca-la-pa. " In this same king- dom," says he, " is the island Cala, which is the mid passage between China and the country of the Arabs. This island, they say, is fourscore leagues in circumference ; and hither they bring all sorts of merchandise, wood aloes of several sorts, camphire, sandal wood, ivory, the wood called cala- 4 .
