CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA. 6z

having extended to China, the quantity of SECT.unwrought silk with which they were supplied, II.by means of the Indian traders, appears to havebeen so scanty, that the manufacture of it couldnot make an addition of any moment) to theirdomestic industry.

Aster this succinct account of the commercecarried on by the ancients in India , I proceed toinquire what knowledge they had of the countriesbeyond the ports of Musiris and Barace, the utmostboundary towards the East to which I have hithertotraced their progress. The Author of the Circum-navigation of the Erythraean Sea, whose accuracyof description justifies the confidence with whichI have followed him for some time, seems to havebeen little acquainted with that part of the coastwhich stretches from Barace towards the south.

He mentions, indeed, cursorily, two or threedifferent ports, but gives no intimation that anyof them were staples of the commerce vctth Egypt.

He hastens to Comar or Cape Comorin, thesouthernmost point of the Indian peninsula, t andhis description of it is so accurate, and so confor-mable to its real state, as stows his informationconcerning it to have been perfectly authenticNear to this he places the pearl-fistery of Colchos,the modern Kiikare, undoubtedly the ,same withthat now carried on by the Dutch in the straitwhich separates the island of Ceylon from thecontinent. As adjacent to this he mentions threedifferent ports, which appear to have been situated

" Peripl.p. B’Anvilk Ant, del’Inde, 1x8, As.