rivers of Africa, made Colchis be regarded as the Gold Coaſt[1] of that early period.
The manners however of thoſe remote ages oblige us to conſider this expedition as rather predatory than commercial.
The trade carried on upon the Euxine ſea may be regarded in two points of view, one reſpecting its own produce, and that of the countries bordering on it; the other reſpecting it as a means of conveying the produce of other countries, and particularly that of the Eaſt Indies, to Europe.
If we look at this ſea in a map of the world, it appears happily ſituated for commerce of every kind, forming an eaſy communication between Europe and the north-eaſt parts of Aſia, enjoying a moderate climate, free from the hurricanes, that infeſtthe Southern ſeas, and the almoſt perpetual ſtorms that diſtreſs navigation in the Northern ocean. It poſſeſſes numerous ports; many navigable rivers flow into it; it abounds with large fiſh, to a degree unknown in other places; and the countries bordering on it, at leaſt the whole extent of the Southern coaſt, are exuberant in the produce of every material for ſhip-building, as timber, pitch, hemp[2], iron, together with great plenty of proviſions. Theſe advantages cauſed it, in early times, to be a ſea of great naval refort. Both the European and the Aſiatic Greeks founded colonies on its ſhores, both to the north-weſt and to the eaſt of the Thracian Boſporus."
