CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA. 3 7

about one hundred and twenty-six years before SECT.the Christian era, a powerful horde of Tartars, l-

pulhed from their native feats on the confines ofChina, and obliged to move towards the westby the pressure of a more numerous body thatrolled on behind them, passed the Jaxartes, andpouring in upon Bactria, like an irresistible torrent,overwhelmed that kingdom , and put an end tothe dominion of the Greeks 54 there, after it hadbeen established near one hundred and thirty years 5? .

From this time until the close of the fifteenthcentury, when the Portuguese, by doubling theCape of Good Hope, opened a new communi-cation with the East, and carried their victoriousarms into every part of India, no European pow-er acquired territory, or established its dominionthere. During this long period, of more thansixteen hundred years, all schemes of conquest inIndia seem to have been totally relinquished, andnothing more was aimed at by any nation , thanto secure an intercourse of trade with that opu-lent country.

It was in Egypt that the feat of this intercoursewas established; it is not without surprise that weobserve how soon and how regularly the com-merce with the East came to be carried on by thatchannel , in which the sagacity of Alexanderdestined it to flow. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus,as soon as he took possession of Egypt, established

54 Mem. de Literat. tom. xxy. p. 17, &c. 55 See

NOTE XV.

D z