ifficult to reckon thirty-three or thirty-four, but not
worth while to repeat the calculation.

[China was then divided into twelve _Sheng_ or provinces: Cheng-Tung,
Liao-Yang, Chung-Shu, Shen-Si, Ling-Pe (Karakorum), Kan-Suh, Sze-ch'wan,
Ho-Nan Kiang-Pe, Kiang-Che, Kiang-Si, Hu-Kwang and Yun-Nan. Rashiduddin
(_J. As._, XI. 1883, p. 447) says that of the twelve Sing, Khanbaligh was
the only one with _Chin-siang_. We read in _Morrison's Dict._ (Pt. II.
vol. i. p. 70): "Chin-seang, a Minister of State, was so called under the
Ming Dynasty." According to Mr. E. H. Parker (_China Review_, xxiv. p.
101), _Ching Siang_ were abolished in 1395. 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