nd as
often as the Khan's letters are sent to them convey them speedily to
the posts at the next village, who, hearing the sound of the
foot-post coming when at a distance, expect him and receive his
letters, and presently carry them to the next watch; and so, the
letters passing through several hands, are conveyed, without delay,
to the place whither they ought to come; and it often happens that by
this the king learns news, or receives new fruits, from a place ten
days' journey distant, in two days. As, for instance, fruits growing
at Cambalu in the morning, by the next day at night are at Xanadu."

Such were the general features of the old roads of Asia and Europe
centuries ago. But it must be regarded as one of the caprices of
civilization that the only roads, in the fifteenth century, which
rivalled the Roman Viae, were constructed in another hemisphere, and by a
people whom the Europeans were wont to regard with disdain, as barbarous.
The gold and silver furniture of the Peruvian palaces excited the
cupidity of the Spanish invaders; but even avarice, for a moment, yielded
to admiration, when the file-leaders of Pizarro's columns beheld for the
first time the great Roads of the Incas. The Peruvians have been
eloquently vindicated from the charge of barbarism by a modern historian,
native of the great continent which Columbus discovered. From the moment
when Cortes had gained the crest of the sierra of Ahualco, his progress
was comparatively easy. Broad and even roads or long and solid causeways
across the lakes and marshes conducted the Spaniards and their allies
through the valley of Mexico or Tenochtitlan; and as they descended from
the regions of sleet and snow, a gay and gorgeous panorama greeted them
on every side, "of water, woodland, and cultivated plains," diversified
with bold and shadowy hills, and studded with the roofs and towers of
populous cities. The running posts of the Aztecs rivalled in speed and
regularity their brethren in Cathay, and Montezuma could boast that his
dominions displayed at least one element of civilization--rapid
communication between the provinces and the capital--which in that age
and long afterwards was unknown to the empire of his rival and conqueror,
the 'white king beyond the seas.' The roads of Peru were however more
wonderful than even those of Mexico. We now borrow Mr. Prescott's
description.

"Those," he says, "who may dis