t Pekin. His
provinces numbered thirty-four, hence their method of communication
was very complete.

"Messengers are sent to divers provinces," says Marco, "and on all
the roads they find at every twenty-five miles a post, where the
messengers are received. At each is a large edifice containing a bed
covered with silk and everything useful and convenient for a
traveller ... here, too, they find full four hundred horses, whom the
prince has ordered to be always in waiting to convey them along the
principal roads.... Thus they go through the provinces, finding
everywhere inns and horses for their reception. Moreover, in the
intervals between these stations, at every three miles are erected
villages of about forty houses inhabited by foot-runners also employed
on these dispatches. They wear large girdles set round with bells,
which are heard at a great distance. Receiving a letter or packet,
one runs full speed to the next village, when his approach being
announced by bells, another is ready to start and proceed to the next,
and so on. By these pedestrian messengers the Khan receives news in
one day and night from places ten days' journey distant; in two days
from those twenty off, and in ten from those a hundred days' journey
distant. Thus he sends his messengers through all his kingdoms and
provinces to know if any of his subjects have had their crops injured
through bad weather; and, if any such injury has happened, he does
not exact from them any tribute for that season--nay, he gives them
corn out of his own stores to subsist on."

This first European account of China is all so delightful that it is
difficult to know where to stop. The mention of coal is interesting.
"Throughout the whole province of Cathay," says Marco, "are a kind
of black stones cut from the mountains in veins, which burn like logs.
They maintain the fire better than wood. If you put them on in the
evening they will preserve it the whole night, and it will be found
burning in the morning. Throughout the whole of Cathay this fuel is
used. They have also wood, but the stones are much less expensive."

Neither can we pass over Marco's account of the wonderful stone bridge
with its twenty-four arches of pure marble across the broad river,
"the most magnificent object in the whole world," across which ten
horsemen could ride abreast, or the Yellow River (Hoang-ho), "so large
and broad that it cannot be crossed by a bridge, and flows on even
to the o