Every City, Or Village, Or Hamlet, That Stands Near One Of Those Post-Stations, Has A Fixed Demand Made On It For As Many Horses As It Can Supply, And These It Must Furnish To The Post.

And in this way are provided all the posts of the cities, as well as the towns and villages round about them; only in uninhabited tracts the horses are furnished at the expense of the Emperor himself.

(Nor do the cities maintain the full number, say of 400 horses, always at their station, but month by month 200 shall be kept at the station, and the other 200 at grass, coming in their turn to relieve the first 200. And if there chance to be some river or lake to be passed by the 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 scue chouse"; Pauthier's Text, "mais il est moult cele" The latter seems absurd. I have no doubt that scue is correct, and is an Italianism, saputo having sometimes the sense of prudent or judicious. Thus P. della Valle (II. 26), speaking of Shah Abbas: "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.

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