Valleys and pleasant plains, and many a tract Deemed uninhabitable erst, are found
Fertile and populous: their sable tribes,
In shade of verdant groves and mountains tall, Frequent enjoy the cool descent of rain, And soft refreshing breezes: nor are lakes Here wanting; those a sea-wide surface spread, Which to the distant Nile and Senegal Send long meanders: whate'er lies beyond, Of rich or barren, ignorance o'ercasts
With her dark mantle. Mon'motapa's coast Is seldom visited; and the rough shore Of Caffres, land of savage Hottentots, Whose hands unnatural hasten to the grave Their aged parents: what barbarity And brutal ignorance, where social trade Is held contemptible! Ye gliding sails, From these inhospitable gloomy shores Indignant turn, and to the friendly Cape, Which gives the cheerful mariner good hope Of prosperous voyage, steer: rejoice to view, What trade, with Belgian industry, creates, Prospects of civil life, fair towns, and lawns, And yellow tilth, and groves of various fruits, Delectable in husk or glossy rind:
There the capacious vase from crystal springs Replenish, and convenient store provide, Like ants, intelligent of future need.
See, through the fragrance of delicious airs, That breathe the smell of balms, how traffic shapes A winding voyage, by the lofty coast
Of Sofala, thought Ophir; in whose hills Even yet some portion of its ancient wealth Remains, and sparkles in the yellow sand
Of its clear streams, though unregarded now: Ophirs more rich are found. With easy course The vessels glide; unless their speed be stopped By dead calms, that oft lie on those smooth seas While every zephyr sleeps: then the shrouds drop: The downy feather on the cordage hung,
Moves not; the flat sea shines like yellow gold, Fused in the fire; or like the marble floor Of some old temple wide. But where so wide, In old or later time, its marble floor Did ever temple boast as this, which here Spreads its bright level many a league around? At solemn distances its pillars rise,
Sofal's blue rocks, Mozambique's palmy steeps, And lofty Madagascar's palmy shores,
Where various woods of beauteous vein and hue, And glossy shells in elegance of form,
For Pond's rich cabinet, or Sloane's, are found. Such calm oft checks their course, 'till this bright scene Is brushed away before the rising breeze, That joys the busy crew, and speeds again The sail full-swelling to Socotra's isle, For aloes famed; or to the wealthy marts Of Ormus or Gombroon, whose streets are oft With caravans and tawny merchants thronged, From neighbouring provinces and realms afar; And filled with plenty, though dry sandy wastes Spread naked round; so great the power of trade! Persia few ports; more happy Hindostan Beholds Surat and Goa on her coasts, And Bombay's wealthy isle and harbour famed, Supine beneath the shade of cocoa groves. But what avails, or many ports or few? Where wild Ambition frequent from his lair
Starts up: while fell Revenge and Famine leads To havoc, reckless of the tyrant's whip, Which clanks along the valleys: oft in vain The merchant seeks upon the strand, whom erst, Associated by trade, he decked and clothed; In vain, whom rage or famine has devoured, He seeks; and with increased affection thinks On Britain. Still howe'er Bombaya's wharfs Pile up blue indigo, and, of frequent use, Pungent saltpetre, woods of purple grain, And many-coloured saps from leaf or flower, And various gums; the clothier knows their worth; And wool resembling cotton, shorn from trees, Not to the fleece unfriendly; whether mixed In warp or woof, or with the line of flax, Or softer silk's material: though its aid To vulgar eyes appear not; let none deem The fleece in any traffic unconcerned; By every traffic aided; while each work Of art yields wealth to exercise the loom, And every loom employs each hand of art. Nor is there wheel in the machine of trade, Which Leeds, or Cairo, Lima, or Bombay, Helps not with harmony to turn around, Though all, unconscious of the union, act.
Few the peculiars of Canara's realm, Or sultry Malabar; where it behoves The wary pilot, while he coasts their shores, To mark o'er ocean the thick rising isles; Woody Chaetta, Birter rough with rocks; Green-rising Barmur, Mincoy's purple hills; And the minute Maldivias, as a swarm Of bees in summer, on a poplar's trunk Clustering innumerable; these behind
His stern receding, o'er the clouds he views Ceylon's grey peaks, from whose volcanoes rise Dark smoke and ruddy flame, and glaring rocks Darted in air aloft; around whose feet Blue cliffs ascend, and aromatic groves, In various prospect; Ceylon also deemed The ancient Ophir. Next Bengala's bay, On the vast globe the deepest, while the prow Turns northward to the rich disputed strand Of Cormandel, where traffic grieves to see Discord and Avarice invade her realms, Portending ruinous war, and cries aloud,
'Peace, peace, ye blinded Britons, and ye Gauls; Nation to nation is a light, a fire,
Enkindling virtue, sciences, and arts:'
But cries aloud in vain.
Against ambition's wide-destroying pride,
Madras erected, and Saint David's fort,
And those which rise on Ganges' twenty streams, Guarding the woven fleece, Calcutta's tower, And Maldo's and Patana's: from their holds The shining bales our factors deal abroad, And see the country's products, in exchange, Before them heaped; cotton's transparent webs, Aloes, and cassia, salutiferous drugs,
Alum, and lacque, and clouded tortoiseshell, And brilliant diamonds, to decorate
Britannia's blooming nymphs. For these, o'er all The kingdoms round our draperies are dispersed, O'er Bukor, Cabul, and the Bactrian vales, And Casimere, and Atoc, on the stream Of old Hydaspes, Porus' hardy realm; And late-discovered Thibet, where the fleece, By art peculiar is compressed and wrought
To threadless drapery, which in conic forms Of various hues their gaudy roofs adorns.
The keels, which voyage through Molucca's straits, Amid a cloud of spicy odours sail,
From Java and Sumatra breathed, whose woods Yield fiery pepper that destroys the moth In woolly vestures: Ternate and Tidore Give to the festal board the fragrant clove And nutmeg, to those narrow bounds confined; While gracious Nature, with unsparing hand, The needs of life o'er every region pours.
Near those delicious isles, the beauteous coast Of China rears its summits. Know ye not, Ye sons of trade, that ever-flowery shore, Those azure hills, those woods and nodding rocks? Compare them with the pictures of your chart; Alike the woods and nodding rocks o'erhang. Now the tall glossy towers of porcelain, And pillared pagods shine; rejoic'd they see The port of Canton opening to their prows, And in the winding of the river moor.
Upon the strand they heap their glossy bales, And works of Birmingham in brass or steel, And flint, and ponderous lead from deep cells raised, Fit ballast in the fury of the storm,
That tears the shrouds and bends the stubborn mast: These for the artists of the fleece procure
Various materials; and, for affluent life, The flavoured tea and glossy painted vase; Things elegant, ill-titled luxuries,
In temperance used, delectable and good. They too from hence receive the strongest thread Of the green silkworm. Various is the wealth Of that renowned and ancient land, secure
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