ABSTRACT
When we explored the practicability of Christianity reaching India in the age of the apostles notice was taken of the establishment as early as 100 Be of a route from India through the Straits of Malacca to Vietnam. Likewise the 'embassy', probably commercial more than official, of Roman merchants to the Chinese court at Loyang in ca. AD 166 and the base established in the Mekong Delta have been noted. The Chinese were offered ivory, rhinoceros horn and tortoise shell and the Chinese Annal commented:
'From that time dates the direct intercourse with this country. ,1
With respect to the time when the Parthians had cut off overland links, M. P. Charlesworth says:
The discovery of direct intercourse with China was, however, made at a time when trade was beginning to languish, when the Empire itself was suffering from the rule of incompetent or weak princes and from the menace of civil wars, when Parthia and the Middle East were undergoing a series of great and important changes. In consequence the overseas trade with China, which might have developed into a considerable business, and might have brought farreaching discoveries in geography and general knowledge, which might have led to the "opening-up" of China centuries earlier, and the inter-penetration of two civilisations, never had a chance and died of inanation.'2
