monk, are
sufficiently evident in these opinions; but, in justice to Cosmas, it must
be remarked, that he labours hard, and not unsuccessfully, to prove that
his notions were all the same as those of the most ancient Greek
philosophers; and, indeed, his system differs from that of Homer,
principally in his assigning a square instead of a round figure to the
plane surface, which they both supposed to belong to the earth. The
cosmography of Homer, thus adopted by Cosmas and most Christian writers,
modified in some respects by the cosmography they drew from the Scriptures,
is a strong proof, as Malte Brun observes, of the powerful influence which
the poetical geography of Homer possessed over the opinions even of very
distant ages.

Having thus briefly detailed those parts of Cosmas's work, which are merely
curious as letting us into the prevalent cosmography of his time, we shall
now proceed to those parts which, as Gibbon remarks, display the knowledge
of a merchant.

We have already noticed the inscription at Aduli for which we are indebted
to this author, and the light which it throws on the commercial enterprise
of the Egyptian sovereigns. According to Cosmas, the oriental commerce of
the Red Sea, in his time, had entirely left the Roman dominions, and
settled at Aduli: this place was regularly visited by merchants from
Alexandria and Aela, an Arabian port, at the head of the eastern branch of
the Red Sea. From Aduli, vessels regularly sailed to the East: here were
collected the aromatics, spices, ivory, emeralds, &c. of Ethiopia, and
shipped by the merchants of the place in their own vessels to India,
Persia, South Arabia, and through Egypt and the north of Arabia, for Rome.

Cosmas was evidently personally acquainted with the west coast of the
Indian peninsula. He enumerates the principal ports, especially those from
which pepper was shipped. This article he describes as a source of great
traffic and wealth. The great island of Sielidiba, or Ceylon, was the mart
of the commerce of the Indian ocean. Its ports were visited by vessels from
Persia, India, Ethiopia, South Arabia, and Tzinitza. If the last country is
China, of which there can be little doubt, as he mentions that the
Tzinitzae brought to Ceylon silk, aloes, cloves, and sandal-wood, and
expressly adds that their country produced silk,--Cosmas is the first
author who fully asserts the intercourse by sea between India and China.
Besides the foreign vessels