Document 6
Source: Description of Mongol roads, Marco Polo,
European traveler working for Kublai Khan, 1280s
You must know that the city of Khan-balik is a center
from which many roads radiate to many provinces, one
to each, and every road bears the name of the province
to which it runs. The whole system is admirably
contrived. When one of the Great Khan's messengers
sets out along any of these roads, he has only to go
twenty-five miles and there he finds a posting station,
which in their language is called yamb and in our
language may be rendered as "horse post." At every
post the messengers find a spacious and palatial
hostelry for their lodging. These hostelries have
splendid beds with rich coverlets of silk and all that
befits an emissary to high rank. If a king came here, he
would be well lodged. Here the messengers find no
less than 400 horses, stationed here by the Great
Khan's orders and always kept in readiness for his
messengers when they are sent on any mission. And
you must understand that posts such as these, at
distances of twenty-five or thirty miles, are to be found
along all the main highways leading to the provinces of
which I have spoken. And at each of these posts the
messengers find three or four hundred horses in
readiness awaiting their command, and palatial
lodgings. And this holds good throughout all the
provinces and kingdoms of the Great Khan's empire.
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