After the letters are collected, the sorting for the place of destination follows, and Fig. 18 represents the sorting room in the Berlin Post Office.  A feverish sort of life is led here day and night, as deficient addresses must be completed, and the illegible ones deciphered.

It may here be mentioned that the delivery of letters to each floor of apartment houses is limited chiefly to Austria and Germany.  In France and England, the letters are delivered to the janitor or else thrown into the letter box placed in the hall.

After the letters are arranged, then comes the transportation of them by means of the railroad, the chaise, or gig, and finally the dog mail, as seen in Fig. 19.  It is hard to believe that this primitive vehicle is useful for sending mail that is especially urgent, and yet it is used in the northern part of Canada.  Drawn by three or four dogs, it glides swiftly over the snow.

It is indeed a large jump from free America, the home of the most unlimited progress, into the Flowery Kingdom, where cues are worn, but we hope our readers are willing to accompany us, in order to have the pleasure of seeing how rapidly a Chinese mail carrier (Fig. 20) trots along his route under his sun umbrella.

Only the largest and most robust pedestrians are chosen for service, and they are obliged to pass through a severe course of training before they can lay any claim to the dignified name, “Thousand Mile Horse.”

[Illustration:  FIG. 18.—­SORTING ROOM IN BERLIN POST OFFICE.]

But even the Chinese carrier may not strike us so curiously as another associate, given in our next picture, Fig. 21, and yet he is a European employe from the Landes department of highly cultivated France.  The inhabitants of this country buckle stilts on to their feet, so as to make their way faster through brambles and underbrush which surrounds them.  The mail carrier copied them in his equipment, and thus he goes around on stilts, provided with a large cane to help him keep his balance, and furnishes a correct example of a post office official suiting the demands of every district.

While the mail in Europe has but little to do with the transportation of passengers, it is important in its activity in this respect in the large Russian empire.

[Illustration:  FIG. 19.—­DOG POST AT LAKE SUPERIOR.]

The tarantass (Fig. 22), drawn by three nimble horses, flies through the endless deserts with wind-like rapidity.

The next illustration (Fig. 23) leads us to a much more remote and deserted country, “Post office on the Booby Island,” occupied only by birds, and a hut containing a box in which are pens, paper, ink, and wafers.  The mariners put their letters in the box, and look in to see if there is anything there addressed to them, then they continue their journey.

Postage stamps are not demanded in this ideal post office, but provision is made for the shipwrecked, by a notice informing them where they can find means of nourishment.