NOTE 7.—­The post-system is described almost exactly as in the text by Friar Odoric and the Archbishop of Soltania, in the generation after Polo, and very much in the same way by Magaillans in the 17th century.  Posts had existed in China from an old date.  They are spoken of by Mas’udi and the Relations of the 9th century.  They were also employed under the ancient Persian kings; and they were in use in India, at least in the generation after Polo.  The Mongols, too, carried the institution wherever they went.

Polo describes the couriers as changed at short intervals, but more usually in Asiatic posts the same man rides an enormous distance.  The express courier in Tibet, as described by “the Pandit,” rides from Gartokh to Lhasa, a distance of 800 miles, travelling day and night.  The courier’s coat is sealed upon him, so that he dares not take off his clothes till the seal is officially broken on his arrival at the terminus.  These messengers had faces cracked, eyes bloodshot and sunken, and bodies raw with vermin. (J.  R. G. S. XXXVIII. p. 149.) The modern Turkish post from Constantinople to Baghdad, a distance of 1100 miles, is done in twenty days by four Tartars riding night and day.  The changes are at Sivas, Diarbekir, and Mosul.  M. Tchihatcheff calculates that the night riding accomplishes only one quarter of the whole. (Asie Mineure, 2’de Ptie. 632-635.)—­See I. p. 352, pai tze.

CHAPTER XXVII.

HOW THE EMPEROR BESTOWS HELP ON HIS PEOPLE, WHEN THEY ARE AFFLICTED WITH DEARTH OR MURRAIN.

Now you must know that the Emperor sends his Messengers over all his Lands and Kingdoms and Provinces, to ascertain from his officers if the people are afflicted by any dearth through unfavourable seasons, or storms or locusts, or other like calamity; and from those who have suffered in this way no taxes are exacted for that year; nay more, he causes them to be supplied with corn of his own for food and seed.  Now this is undoubtedly a great bounty on his part.  And when winter comes, he causes inquiry to be made as to those who have lost their cattle, whether by murrain or other mishap, and such persons not only go scot free, but get presents of cattle.  And thus, as I tell you, the Lord every year helps and fosters the people subject to him.

[There is another trait of the Great Kaan I should tell you; and that is, that if a chance shot from his bow strike any herd or flock, whether belonging to one person or to many, and however big the flock may be, he takes no tithe thereof for three years.  In like manner, if the arrow strike a boat full of goods, that boat-load pays no duty; for it is thought unlucky that an arrow strike any one’s property; and the Great Kaan says it would be an abomination before God, were such property, that has been struck by the divine wrath, to enter into his Treasury.[NOTE 1]]