Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/56

20 THE CLOSING OF THE OLD TRADE PATHS dition of Sesostris, the Egyptian monarch of the four- teenth ( ?) century B. c., from the Red Sea along the Asiatic coast, and his conquest of the intervening coun- tries between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. This would suffice, apart from any legendary invasion of India proper, to give to Egypt for a time the com- mand of the Syrian caravan route. The Father of His- tory mentions that he had himself seen the sculptured memorials of the conqueror in Syria and Asia Minor a statement seemingly verified by their modern dis- covery on the roads to Smyrna and to Beirut. Nor is it needful to examine too closely the evidence for the Sesostris Canal from the Nile to the Gulf of Suez, or its identity with the similar works on which later Egyptian kings, Necho, Darius son of Hystaspes, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, laboured. The northerly winds that blow down the Egyptian side of the Red Sea during most of the year rendered the navigation up its western shores difficult for vessels of the Old World. Indeed, the perils of the coasting trade from the emporiums of Indian commerce on the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea seem to be commemorated by names along its route by the Cape of the Indian's Grave on the southeast of Arabia, and by the Straits of Bab-al-Mandab, or Gate of Tears, at its southwestern extremity. The author of the " Periplus " (about 80 A. D. ?) gives a chapter to the " dreadful coast " of Arabia, without harbours, and peopled by tribes who had no mercy for shipwrecked crews. Under the enterprising Egyptian King Psammeti-