Cathaian Khan." Marco Polo thus describes the great roads and
excellent inns in the neighbourhood of Cambalu.

"There are many public roads from the city of Cambalu, which conduct
to the neighbouring provinces, and in every one of them, at the end
of five-and-twenty or thirty miles, are lodgings or inns built,
called _lambs_, that is, post-houses, with large and fair courts,
chambers furnished with beds and other provisions, every way fit to
entertain great men, nay, even to lodge a king. The provisions are
laid in from the country adjacent: there are about four hundred
horses, which are in readiness for messengers and ambassadors, who
there leave their tired horses, and take fresh; and in mountainous
places, where are no villages, the Great Khan sends people to
inhabit, about ten thousand at a place, where these lambs or
post-houses are built, and the people cultivating the ground for
their provisions. These excellent regulations continue unto the
utmost limits of the empire, so that, on the public ways throughout
the whole of the Khan's dominions, about ten thousand of the king's
inns are found; and the number of the horses appointed for the
service of the messengers in those inns are more than two hundred
thousand--a thing almost incredible: hence it is that in a little
while, with change of men and horses, intelligence comes, without
stop, to the court. The horses are employed by turns, so that of the
four hundred, two hundred are in the stables ready, the other two
hundred at grass, each a month at a time. Their cities also, that
are adjoining to rivers and lakes, are appointed to have ferry-boats
in readiness for the posts, and cities on the borders of deserts are
directed to have horses and provisions for the use of such as pass
through those deserts: and they have a reasonable allowance for this
service from the Khan. In cases of great moment the posts will ride
two hundred miles a-day, or sometimes two hundred and fifty. Also
they ride all night, foot-posts running by them with lights, if the
moon does not shine.

"There are also between these inns other habitations, three or four
miles distant from one another, in which there are a few houses,
where foot-posts live, having each of them his girdle hung full of
shrill-sounding bells. These keep themselves always ready, a