CHAPTER II.
COMMERCE WITH ASIATIC NATIONS.
Intercourse 'with China.^—Its history and early character.__
Character o f foreign commerce with the Chinese, and regulations
under which it is tolerated.— Navigation and shipping
o f the Chinese.— Nature o f the import cargoes.—
Amount of shipping employed.— Trade between the Indian
islanders and the Hindu-Chinese nations Trade of the
Archipelago with the country of the Hindus.—-Probable
history of the first intercourse between them.,—Present state
o f the trade— Imports and exports— Trade between the Indian
islands and Arabia.—Its history and character Arabian
navigation— Exports and imports.
-A. c o m m e r c ia l intercourse has, from very remote
times, subsisted between the Archipelago and all
the great maritime nations of Asia. I shall, in the
present chapter, furnish a sketch of the history and
circumstances of this connection, ■ befof inninsor with that of the Chinese, and successively rendering an
account of—that with the Hindu-Chinese nations,
—the nations of Hindustan,—and the Arabs and
Persian,—as, in other parts of the world, we find
that it is the more opulent and civilized that have
always visited the country of those that are less sq.
All the strangers, therefore, who, in any age, have
held a commercial connection with the Indian islanders,
have invariably visited them ; while the spirit
of adventure, or the ambition of wealth and fame,
has never carried the inhabitants of the Archipelago
beyond the Waters which wash their, native islands.
The most extensive, intimate, and probably the
most ancient, of the foreign commercial relations of
the Indian islands, is that with China. A demand
for the most peculiar of the products of the
Indian islands may be said to be now interwoven
with the unchangeable habits, manners, and even
religious ceremonies, of the singular population of
that empire. From this fact alone, which is of
more value than the imperfect records of either the
Chinese or the Indian islanders, we may safely infer,
that a commercial intercourse has subsisted for
many ages between them. We must guard ourselves,
however, against imagining that, in early
times, it was a busy or an active intercourse.’ There
is unquestionable proof, indeed, of the contrary. At
present, since the road has been shewn to them
by Europeans, and parts of the country, rendered
by their protection a safe residence, the Chinese
have displayed a strong tendency to settle and colonize.
Before this period, they had certainly shewn
nowhere a' disposition to settle, as is sufficiently
demonstrated by a total absence, not only of such
colonization, but by that of any vestige of the lan