52 AN HISTORICAL DISQUISITION

SECT. The account which Pliny gives of Musuis, andIf. of Barace, another harbour not far distant, whichwas hkewife frequented by the ships'from Berenice,as being both so incommodious for trade oilaccount of the fhallownefs of the ports , that itbecame necessary to discharge and take in thecargoes in small boats, does not enable us to fixtheir position with perfect accuracy. This descrip-tion applies to many ports on the Malabar coast,but from two circumstances mentioned by him;one, that they are not far distant from Cottonara,the country which produces pepper in great abun-dance; and the other, that in sailing towards themthe course lay near Nitrias, the station of thepirates; I adopt the opinion of Major Rennell,that they were situated somewhere between Goaand Tellicherry, and that probably the modernMeerzaw or Merjee is the Musiris of the ancients,and Barcelone their Barace 8 .

As in these two ports was the principal stapleof the trade between -Egypt and India, when inits most flourishing state, this seems to be the pro-per place for inquiring into the nature of thecommerce which the ancients , particularly theRomans, carried on with that country, and forenumerating the commodities most in request,which they imported from it. But as the opera-tions of commerce , and the mode of regulatingit, were little attended to in those states of anti-quity, of whose transactions we have any accurate

' Introd. p. xxxvii.