SC - Books on the shielf

[Bonne of Traquair]

The Red Sea trade was a thriving business by the 3rd Century BCE and almost
certainly earlier although it was trade primarily with Africa and Arabia
Felix.  

In time spices were traded in Calcutta, shipped around India to Bombay, then
seasonally transferred during the monsoons to Mocha in Yemen.  From Mocha
they would be traded into Africa and north to Cairo and Eliat (for the
caravan trade).  Greece and Rome apparently took advantage of this trade and
spice continued to flow through Byzantium into Europe prior to the Crusades.

>From the 13th to the 16th Centuries, this trade was controlled by the
Mamluks of Egypt, who permitted between 200 and 300 tons of pepper to be
exported to Europe each year.  In 1503, the Portuguese with the financial
assistance of the House of Fugger imported 1,300 tons of pepper, broke the
Mamluk monopoly, and dropped pepper prices in Europe by 1/3.

Pirates, privateers, and rough and tumble trade practices were common.

Bear
 

> Information that I have, from my research into nautical 
> stuff, is that spices were
> routinely shipped by the _ton_ (yes, TON) by late period, 
> which is what made 
> shipping spices so profitable.
<clipped>
Many times appropriating the cargoes of 
> other ships was 
> how the early East India fleets topped off there holds, which 
> is why the 
> company was founded and run notable Elizabethan privateers, 
> such as Sir 
> John Hawkins.
> 
> Brandu