Whence we came?

Biblical Literature asks these pertinent questions, "Whence did Egypt obtain spices and drugs with which she embalmed her dead? Whence the incense that burned on her altars? Whence came into the empire the immense amount of cotton in which her inhabitants were clad, and which her own soil so sparingly produced? And whence came into Egypt the rumors of the Ethiopian gold countries which Cambyses set out to seek? Whence that profusion of ivory and ebony that Greek and Phoenician artists embellished? Whence the early spread of the name of Ethiopia celebrated by Jewish poets as well as by the earliest Grecian bards? Whence but from the international commerce of which Ethiopia was the center and seat?" These principal trade routes may still be pointed out by a chain of ruins, extending from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. The cities Adule, Axum, Meroe, Thebes and Carthage were the links in the chain. The "merchandise of Ethiopia" of which the Bible so often speaks passed along this line of cities to less civilized portions of the earth.