es the time of each courier's arrival and departure; and there are
often other officers whose business it is to make monthly visitations of
all the posts, and to punish those runners who have been slack in their
work.[NOTE 6]) The Emperor exempts these men from all tribute, and pays
them besides.

Moreover, there are also at those stations other men equipt similarly with
girdles hung with bells, who are employed for expresses when there is a
call for great haste in sending despatches to any governor of a province,
or to give news when any Baron has revolted, or in other such emergencies;
and these men travel a good two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles in
the day, and as much in the night. I'll tell you how it stands. They take
a horse from those at the station which are standing ready saddled, all
fresh and in wind, and mount and go at full speed, as hard as they can
ride in fact. And when those at the next post hear the bells they get
ready another horse and a man equipt in the same way, and he takes over
the letter or whatever it be, and is off full-speed to the third station,
where again a fresh horse is found all ready, and so the despatch speeds
along from post to post, always at full gallop, with regular change of
horses. And the speed at which they go is marvellous. (By night, however,
they cannot go so fast as by day, because they have to be accompanied by
footmen with torches, who could not keep up with them at full speed.)

Those men are highly prized; and they could never do it, did they not bind
hard the stomach, chest and head with strong bands. And each of them
carries with him a gerfalcon tablet, in sign that he is bound on an urgent
express; so that if perchance his horse break down, or he meet with other
mishap, whomsoever he may fall in with on the road, he is empowered to
make him dismount and give up his horse. Nobody dares refuse in such a
case; so that the courier hath always a good fresh nag to carry him.[NOTE
7]

Now all these numbers of post-horses cost the Emperor nothing at all; and
I will tell you the how and the why. Every city, or village, or hamlet,
that stands near one of those post-stations, has a fixed demand made on it
for as many horses as it can supply, and these it must furnish to the
post. And in this way are provided all the posts of the cities, as well as
the towns and villages round about them; only in uninhabited tracts the
horses are furnished at the expense of the Empe