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re numerous and well-frequented routes from Hindustan, that vast storehouse of treasure from which Europe drew its riches. Along these routes cities flourished. There were the great ports, Licia in the Levant, Trebizond on the Black Sea, and Alexandria. From these ports, Venetian and Genoese traders bore the produce over the passes of the Alps to the Upper Danube and the Rhine. Here it was a source of wealth to the cities along the waterways, from Ratisbon and Nuremburg, to Bruges and Antwerp. Even the slightest acquaintance with the history of the Middle Ages must suffice to give the student an idea of the importance of these cities. When all these routes save the Egyptian were closed by the hordes of savages which infested Central Asia, it became an easy matter for the Moors in Africa and the Turks in Europe to exact immense revenues from the Eastern trade, solely through their monopoly of the route of transit. Thus there developed an economic parasitism which crippled the trade with the East. The Turks were securely seated at Constantinople, threatening to advance into the heart of Europe, and building up an immense military system out of the taxes imposed upon the trade of Europe with the East--a military power, which, in less than a quarter of a century, enabled Selim I to conquer Mesopotamia and the holy towns of Arabia, and to annex Egypt.[87] It became necessary, then, to find a new route to India; and it was this great economic necessity which set Columbus thinking of a pathway to India over the Western Sea. It was this same great problem which engaged the attention of all the navigators of the time; it was this economic necessity which induced Ferdinand and Isabella to support the adventurous plan of Columbus. In a word, without detracting in any manner from the splendid genius of Columbus, or from the romance of his great voyage of discovery, we see that, fundamentally, it was the economic interest of Europe which gave birth to the one and made the other possible. The same explanation applies to the voyage of Vasco da Gama, six years later, which resulted in finding a way to India over the southeast course by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Kipling asks in his ballad, "The British Flag"-- "And what should they know of England, who only England know?" There is a profound truth in the defiant line, a truth which applies equally to America or any other country. The present is inseparable from the
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