runners and horse-posts, the neighbouring cities are bound to keep
three or four boats in constant readiness for the purpose.)
And now I will tell you of the great bounty exercised by the Emperor
towards his people twice a year.
NOTE 1.—The G. Text has “_et ce est mout sçue chouse_”; Pauthier’s
Text, “_mais il est moult celé_.” The latter seems absurd. I have no
doubt that _sçue_ is correct, and is an Italianism, _saputo_ having
sometimes the sense of prudent or judicious. Thus P. della Valle
(II. 26), speaking of Sháh Abbás: “_Ma noti V.S. i tiri di questo
re_, saputo insieme e bizzarro,” “acute with all his eccentricity.”
NOTE 2.—Both Neumann and Pauthier seek Chinese etymologies of this
Mongol word, which the Tartars carried with them all over Asia. It
survives in Persian and Turki in the senses both of a post-house
and a post-horse, and in Russia, in the former sense, is a relic
of the Mongol dominion. The ambassadors of Shah Rukh, on arriving
at Sukchu, were lodged in the _Yám-Khána_, or post-house, by the
city gate; and they found ninety-nine such Yams between Sukchu and
Khanbaligh, at each of which they were supplied with provisions,
servants, beds, night-clothes, etc. Odoric likewise speaks of the
hostelries called _Yam_, and Rubruquis applies the same term to
quarters in the imperial camp, which were assigned for the lodgment
of ambassadors. (_Cathay_, ccii., 137; _Rubr._ 310.)
[Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, 101, note) says that these post-stations
were established by Okkodai in 1234 throughout the Mongol empire.
(_D’Ohsson_, ii. 63.) Dr. G. Schlegel (_T’oung Pao_, II. 1891,
265, note) observes that _iam_ is not, as Pauthier supposed,
a contraction of _yi-mà_, horse post-house (_yi-mà_ means
post-horse, and Pauthier makes a mistake), but represents the
Chinese character 站, pronounced at present _chán_, which means
in fact a road station, a post. In Annamite, this character 站
is pronounced _trạm_, and it means, according to _Bonet’s Dict.
Annamite-Français_: “Relais de poste, station de repos.” (See
_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. p. 187 note.)—H. C.]
NOTE 3.—Martini and Magaillans, in the 17th century, give nearly
the same account of the government hostelries.
NOTE 4.—Here Ramusio has this digression: “Should any one find it
difficult to understand how there should be such a population as
all this implies, and how they can subsist, the answer is that all
the Idolaters, and Saracens as well, take six, eight, or ten wives
apiece when they can afford it, and beget an infinity of children.
In fact, you shall find many men who have each more than thirty
sons who form an armed retinue to their father, and this through
the fact of his having so many wives. With us, on the other hand,
a man hath but one wife; and if she be barren, still he must abide
by her for life, and have no progeny; thus we have not such a
population as they have.
“And as regards food, they have abundance; for they generally
consume rice, panic, and millet (especially the Tartars, Cathayans,
and people of Manzi); and these three crops in those countries
render an hundred-fold. Those nations use no bread, but only boil
those kinds of grain with milk or meat for their victual. Their
wheat, indeed, does not render so much, but this they use only to
make vermicelli, and pastes of that description. No spot of arable
land is left untilled; and their cattle are infinitely prolific, so
that when they take the field every man is followed by six, eight,
or more horses for his own use. Thus you may clearly perceive how
the population of those parts is so great, and how they have such
an abundance of food.”
NOTE 5.—The Burmese kings used to have the odoriferous _Durian_
transmitted by horse-posts from Tenasserim to Ava. But the most
notable example of the rapid transmission of such dainties, and the
nearest approach I know of to their despatch by telegraph, was that
practised for the benefit of the Fatimite Khalif Aziz (latter part
of 10th century), who had a great desire for a dish of cherries of
Balbek. The Wazir Yakub ben-Kilis caused six hundred pigeons to be
despatched from Balbek to Cairo, each of which carried attached to
either leg a small silk bag containing a cherry! (_Quat. Makrizi_,
IV. 118.)
NOTE 6.—“Note is taken at every post,” says Amyot, in speaking of
the Chinese practice of last century, “of the time of the courier’s
arrival, in order that it may be known at what point delays have
occurred.” (_Mém._ VIII. 185.)
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_, 2ᵈᵉ
Ptie. 632–635.)—See I. p. 352, _paï tze_.