Well I wouldn't want to be a merchant of the American Web because basically that didn't really seem like a suitable career, hehe. It was spotchy...it was definitely a more steady commerce system along trade on the Silk Road, Indian Ocean Basin Sea Routes, and the Sand Roads of Trans-Saharan Trade. Sea Routes would definitely be cool seeing as they were safest, could carry more goods, but being stuck at sea for so long and having to spend half your time on land away from home (seeing as you ride the monsoon winds- East in Summer and West in Winter), I'd rather be a merchant on a land Route. This leaves me one of two options: The Silk Roads or The Sand Roads. Both have their own appealing qualities, esp with some Mongol rulers offering to pay OVER the asking price of goods to merchants on the Silk Road, but seeing as I'd be a merchant on the move, I could get by with less money, so overall I think I'd choose to be a merchant on the Sand Roads because:
1.) It's most different from what I'm used to (but still within my comfort zone)
2.) Semi-safe (compared with the Silk Roads)
3.) It is positively not to cold for my skinny body (blisteringly hot is more like it)
4.) AND the goods that I, as a merchant, would be carrying/trading/selling or whatnot, aren't too shabby themselves.
- Gold
- Salt
- Slaves (not that this is one that I myself would trade, they are people after all!!)
- Horses
- Books (<3 gotta love reading)
- Cloth
- Weapons (*mischievous look*)
- Other Manufactured Goods (etc.)
5.) Crossing the Sahara Desert! okay so the way the Sand Roads work are pretty special in their own way, namely the fact that the average days spent crossing the Sahara was 70 days. Leading up to this 10 week journey is the process of fattening up the camels, and once in the desert these amazing animals need very little water to make it across (they can go ten days without water to sustain them!). The other bonus tied in with crossing the Sahara is the fact that most of the travel takes place at night...when there's a dark sky with hundreds of THOUSANDS of visible twinkling lights, known as stars to most, with millions more out of sight of the naked human eye. (Night travel...advantage to the merchants because the avoided the heat of day, but the view is way better at night, with the constellations accompanying the merchants and camels on their trek across the desert.)
Alright, the slave thing does show the downside to being a merchant on the Sand Road, seeing as slaves were one of the Big Three items traded (Gold and Salt being the other two), but I do believe I could make it as a very promising merchant, even without selling other humans like the properties that they are not.
