ro found and plundered the gold-plated temples of Cuzco,
which were as rich as any described by Marco Polo in his account of
Cipango; and in the Bahamas archipelago, through which the Spaniards
passed in the voyage of 1492, precious pink pearls have been
discovered in great numbers and of surpassing beauty.

Vasco da Gama, in 1497, was to open the way by water to the vast
Oriental seas--to Calicut and Cathay--but until the last quarter of
the fifteenth century the commerce of the eastern hemisphere depended
mainly upon transportation by land. "Voyages of much extent were
almost unknown, and the mariner confined himself to inland waters, or
hovered along the shores of the great Western Ocean, without venturing
out of sight of land.... The thriving republics of Italy were the
carriers of the world. For many centuries their citizens were almost
the only agents for commercial communication with the countries of the
East. Venice and Genoa maintained establishments on the farthest
shores of the Mediterranean and Black seas.

"Immense caravans crossed the deserts of Arabia and Egypt, their
camels laden with the costly fabrics of the Indies, which were
received by the Italian traders from the hands of the Mahometans and
distributed over Europe. Here and there upon the deserts a green
oasis, with its bubbling spring or rippling rivulet, served these
mighty trains for a resting-place, where man and beast halted to
recover from the fatigues of their weary journeys. Occasionally, on
these spots where the soil was of sufficient fertility to sustain a
population, villages grew up. In rarer instances and in earlier ages,
large cities had been built upon these stopping-places and were for
the time the centres of the traffic.... Travellers of the present day
occasionally visit their sites, and tell wonderful tales of the
gigantic ruins of some Baalbec or Palmyra of the wilderness.

"It was not to be supposed that the shrewd spirit of mercantile
enterprise and speculation would remain dormant in this state of
affairs. Traders in every part of Europe were alive to the advantages
to be derived from the discovery of a new route of transportation.
Several efforts were made, and in some cases attended with immense
profit and success, to communicate with India by the long and arduous
journey round the Black Sea, and through the almost unexplored regions
of Circassia and Georgia. The far-off shores of the Caspian were
reached by some travell