Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/160

solely by raising prices for others, remained always a despised individual, nor ever developed a commercial conscience.

But although this special aptitude for commerce is predicated of the Chinese, they do not appear to have showed any spirit of tradal enterprise in very early times. The Phœnicians, Carthaginians, and Syrians were conspicuously ahead of them in that respect, and had learned to go far afield in search of markets long before the Chinese conceived any idea of travelling for the sake either of information or of gain. It is shown by ancient annals that these Western peoples carried on an active trade between Alexandria and the East some centuries before Christ, but whether that trade reached China is uncertain, and the interest attaching to the bare fact scarcely seems to justify the discussion it has provoked. What can be asserted with confidence, however, is that, prior to the Christian era—probably as early as the beginning of the second century B.C.—a commerce of appreciable magnitude existed between the Roman Empire and northern China, silk, iron, and furs being carried westward, while glassware, woven stuffs, embroideries, drugs, metals, asbestos, and gems were sent to China. Syria—or "Ta-ts'in," as the Chinese called it—was the origin of this commerce, and Parthia was the half-way house, the transport being entirely overland. A choice of two routes offered from Parthia, one passing