CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA. 3?

about one hundred and twenty-fix years before sect.the Cnriftian era, a powerful horde of Tartars , I.

pulhed from their native feats on the confines ofChina , and obliged to move towards the weftby the preffnre of a more numerous .body thatrolled on behind them, palled the Jaxartts, andpouring in upon Ba&ria, like an irrefiftible torrent,overwhelmed that kingdom , and put an end tothe dominion of the Greeks there, after it hadbeen eftablilhed near one hundred and thirty years

From this time until the clofe of the fifteenthcentury, when the Portuguefe, by doubling theCape of Good Hope , opened a new communi-cation with the Eaft, and carried their victoriousarms into every part of India , no European pow-er acquired territory, or eftablilhed its dominionthere. During this long period, of more thanfixteen hundred years, all fchemes of conqueft inIndia feem to have been totally relinquilhed, andnothing more was aimed at by any nation , thanto fecure an intercourfe of trade with that opu-lent country.

It was in Egypt that the feat of this intercourfewas eftablilhedit is not without furprife that weobferve how foon and how regularly the com-merce with the Eaft came to be carried on by thatchannel , in which the fagacity of Alexanderdeftined it to flow. Ptolemy , the fon of Lagus,as foon as he took poffeflion of Egypt , eftablilhed

’* Mem. de Litcrat. tom. xxv. p. 17, &c.NOTE XV.

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