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The voyage of the River Dragon then, I took it, was a pioneer voyage, which might inaugurate routes of trade and perhaps open conduits of diplomacy. When land roads are closed, Thassa's roads beckon. What cannot be secured locally may be fetched from abroad. It was a small thing, of course, a single voyage, but it is not unusual that the explorer is followed by the merchant, just as it is not impossible that the merchant might be followed by the soldier. Such a voyage may take several months for a single ship, but if a hundred ships are making such voyages day by day, one may well arrive daily in one port or another. One supposed that Lord Yamada, in his less-straitened circumstances, would be less motivated to seek foreign goods, but, too, one supposed, if he were once apprised of tarns, as presumably he soon would be, and might now be, he would be eager to supply himself with so valuable a military arm. One could conceive then, eventually, of the navies of warring shoguns extending their concerns beyond their embattled local waters, and beginning to compete for trade routes and access to distant ports. - (Mariners of Gor, Chapter )