I imagine that the thirty-four
provinces refer to the Fu cities, which numbered however thirty-nine,
according to Oxenham's Historical Atlas.
- H. C.]
(Cathay, 263 seqq. and 137; Mendoza, I. 96; Erdmann, 142; Hammer's
Wassaf, p. 42, but corrected.)
CHAPTER XXVI.
HOW THE KAAN'S POSTS AND RUNNERS ARE SPED THROUGH MANY LANDS AND
PROVINCES.
Now you must know that from this city of Cambaluc proceed many roads and
highways leading to a variety of provinces, one to one province, another
to another; and each road receives the name of the province to which it
leads; and it is a very sensible plan.[NOTE 1] And the messengers of the
Emperor in travelling from Cambaluc, be the road whichsoever they will,
find at every twenty-five miles of the journey a station which they call
Yamb,[NOTE 2] or, as we should say, the "Horse-Post-House." And at each
of those stations used by the messengers, there is a large and handsome
building for them to put up at, in which they find all the rooms furnished
with fine beds and all other necessary articles in rich silk, and where
they are provided with everything they can want. If even a king were to
arrive at one of these, he would find himself well lodged.
At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be posted some four
hundred horses standing ready for the use of the messengers; at others
there shall be two hundred, according to the requirements, and to what the
Emperor has established in each case. At every twenty-five miles, as I
said, or anyhow at every thirty miles, you find one of these stations, on
all the principal highways leading to the different provincial
governments; and the same is the case throughout all the chief provinces
subject to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3] Even when the messengers have to pass
through a roadless tract where neither house nor hostel exists, still
there the station-houses have been established just the same, excepting
that the intervals are somewhat greater, and the day's journey is fixed at
thirty-five to forty-five miles, instead of twenty-five to thirty. But
they are provided with horses and all the other necessaries just like
those we have described, so that the Emperor's messengers, come they from
what region they may, find everything ready for them.
And in sooth this is a thing done on the greatest scale of magnificence
that ever was seen. Never had emperor, king, or lord, such wealth as this
manifests! For it is a fact that on all these posts taken together there
are more than 300,000 horses kept up, specially for the use of the
messengers. And the great buildings that I have mentioned are more than
10,000 in number, all richly furnished, as I told you. The thing is on a
scale so wonderful and costly that it is hard to bring oneself to describe
it.[NOTE 4]
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 625 of 655
Words from 326587 to 327091
of 342071
