80 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
merchandise. Several of these coast cities were also termini of caravan routes entering them from eastward, forming a net-work which united the various provinces of Persia and reached through the passes of Afghanistan into northern India. From the head of the Persian Gulf one branch of this route went up the line of the Tigris to Bagdad. From this point goods were taken by caravan through Kurdistan to Tabriz, the great northern capital of Persia, and thence westward either to the Black Sea or to Layas on the Mediterranean. Another branch was followed by the trains of camels which made their way from Bassorah along the tracks through the desert which spread like fan to the westward, till they reached the Syrian cities of Aleppo, Antioch, and Damascus. They finally reached the Mediterranean coast at Laodicea, Tripoli, Beirut, or Jaffa, while some goods were carried even as far south as Alexandria.
The southern route was a sea route in all except its very latest stages. It lay through the Red Sea and brought the products of India and the Far East by sea to Egypt, whence they passed to Europe from the mouths of the Nile.
The land routes were devious and dangerous. They were insecure and transportation over them was difficult and expensive. Robbers plundered the merchants and Governments taxed them beyond measure. Of the two land routes the Northern was not a highway to the same extent as the middle one was. With its deadly camel journey of alternate shows and torried wastes, rendered it available only for articles of small bulk. It never attained the importance of the Middle route. Even this Middle or Indo-Syrian route was not always open. It was blocked twice. Once between 632—651 A. D. when the Saracen Arabs under the conquering impulse of Islam seized the countries of this Indo-Syrian route. For a second time it was blocked during the crusades in the 11th Century. The southern route which was for most part a sea route was equally unsafe. “The storms of the Indian Ocean and its adjacent waters were destructive to vast numbers of the frail vessels of the East; piracy vied with storms in