48 SOCIAL SCIENTIST the destination of the flow of goods were not directly connected, they passed through many hands before reaching the final destination. The source of production and the ultimate point of consumption, in case of external trade, were connected by a chain of intermediaries, each operating individually, and each having a small, localised area of operation. TRADING BEFORE 1200 AD There is no doubt that textile production and trade were important features of the Bengal economy and exports for a long time. The quality and expertise they achieved, that was recognised universally by the world from the sixteenth century onwards, could not have been realised without many centuries of hard back behind it. This we can understand intuitively, but there is not enough documentary back up of that heritage, but for a few stray references. Baines, the chronicler of the history of the textile, claims that, even in the days of Alexander, "the Muslins of Bengal were then, as at the present day, superior to all others, and received from the Greeks the name of Gangatiki, indicating that they were made on the borders of the Ganges." [Baines, 1966: 13] A great deal of what we know about trade in general, and textile trade in particular, is derived from the accounts of foreign travellers, most of whom began pouring in after the conquest by Khilji around 1200 AD. The more important among them wrote in detail about their impressions. In many cases their accounts were subjective, onesided, and aimed at the readership in their own country of domicile. They did not give figures, and wherever they did there is no way of knowing how accurate these were. Still, these were men who had travelled widely, and were in a position to make comparative statements, more meaningfully than those who had not gone beyond the frontiers of their own regions, or had acquired knowledge about Bengal and trade in Bengal from other sources, and not from direct experience, however imperfect it was. The three great travellers we are referring to in this section visited India and Bengal either before the Portuguese arrival in India in 1498, or before their arrival had made any impact. Ma Huan Ying - Yai Sheng-Lan, was a Chinese traveller, who accompanied the great Muslim eunuch Commander of the Chinese navy, Cheng Ho, in the first half the fifteenth century. He noted that the people of Bengal grew mulberry trees, silk worms and cocoons, and made fine and coarse silk and embroidered silk kerchiefs, but