It is well known that there are) in China some twenty main government post roads. Esch of these gone by the name of Kuan-ma-tolu (official horse great-road) and they radiate from the capital at Peking to the furthest border of this huge Empire. Along each road inns innumerable and for the most part habitable are to be found at regular stages. There jate also on many of them watch and \rignal towers still standing. Were it possible to collect even the merest outline of the history of the Efe these great arteries what a faecit ing tale of romance could be wri For centuries past the tide Western commerce with China ebbed and flowed over thousands miles of these well known Vast hordes of armed men, they cannot be called, have start slong them for distant campsiy Full of hopes of conquest st outset, ignorant of dangers ab were these sturdy sons of Han, wha. it should not be forgotten, once conquered Nepal and even threatened the North-East frontier of India Thousands, tens of thomands must have passed down the salient highway which Lanchow guards never to return. Burning cities, gu. risens slaughtered to a man, ran tracks of wasted country bare been the oft recurring incidecu of the history of such vor highways. Perhaps the mo. important of them all is the Gros North-West Road, over which mor than 2,000 years ago a steady stream: lof travellers were means of this road one of the mat enlightened faiths the world bu ever known entered China, ornisss ies having been sent to far off India by the then Emperor to bring back ito his Court Buddhist preacher. Ambassadors from European kiao and potentates obtained their firn impression of the might of Chins as they slowly travelled South from Chiayakuan to Lanchow en route to Pel Methods of Communication.
Marvellous steries are told of the semi-commercial embassies and of their reception by Chinese officials -|in the haughty and arrogant insane not so long discarded. Tales, too, of the wonderful methods of com munication practised over thousands be-lof miles of road between the capital and its far distant frontiers. By means of relays of hard riding horse. men and, whenever they were 0 sufficiently rapid, by the use of fires at night and amoke signals by day from the watch towers bordering this great highway, the news for almost as if by magic. The story runs that on occasions "'and whea that/any matter of news arises in the Empire messengers start incontitently at " great pace on horseback for the Court: and when they came near these yam, hostels or stations, they blew a horn whereupon mine host straightway maketh another messenger get ready; and to him the rider who hath come posting up de livereth the letter, whilst he hill tarrieth for refreshment. And in this manner the Emperor receive th jin the course of one natural day the news of matters from a distance of thirty days' journey."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.