2;r

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

mon among them, of buying children in years of famine,whom they educate in the Mahomedan religion. Hist.Gener. des Voyages, torn. vi. p. 357.

NOTE XXXIX. Sect. III. p. 103.

From the Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo , Doge of Venice,,who was elevated to that high station at a time when hiscountrymen had established a regular trade with-Alexandria,and imported from it all the productions of the East, itwas natural to expect some information concerning theirearly trade with that country; but, except an idle taleconcerning some Venetian ships which had sailed to Alexan-dria about the year 828, contrary to a decree of the state,and which stole thence the body of St. Mark j Murat.Script. Rer. Ital. vol. xii. lib. 8. c. 2. p. ito.; I find noother hint concerning the communication between the twocountries. On the contrary, circumstances occur, whichshow that the resort of Europeans to Egypt had ceased,almost entirely, for some time. Prior to the seventh andeighth centuries, the greater part of the public deeds inItaly, and in other countries of Europe, were. written uponpaper fabricated of the Egyptian Papyrus; but after thatperiod, as Europeans no longer ventured to trade inAlexandria, almost all charters and other deeds are writtenupon parchment, Murat. Antiq. Ital. Medii Ævi, vol. iii.p. 8?2. 1 have been induced , both in the text and inthis note , to state these particulars concerning the inter-ruption of trade between the Christians and Mahomedans sofully, in order to correct an error into which severalmodern authors have fallen, by supposing, that soon afterthe first conquests of the Caliphs, the trade with Indiareturned into its ancient channels, and the merchants ofEurope resorted with the fame freedom as formerly to theports of Egypt and Syria.

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