The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.353

v3.c20.353

Posts were carried by horsemen, called *ulāq* (*ulāgh*), or by runners, called *dāwat*. For the former, horses were posted at distances of seven or eight miles along the roads, but the stages travelled by the latter were but the third of a *kurūh*, or about two-thirds of a mile. Ibn Batūtah mistranslates the word *dāwat*, properly *dhāwat*, as ‘the third of a *kurūh*,’ but it means simply ‘a runner.’ He says that these occupied huts, without the villages, at every third part of a *kurūh* on the roads, and were always ready to start at a moment’s notice. Each carried a staff tipped with copper bells, and when he left a post town he took his letters in his left hand and his staff in his right, shaking it so that the bells jingled, and ran at full speed towards the next post-house, where a runner, warned of his approach by the sound, awaited him, took the letters from him, and ran at full speed in like manner towards the next post-house.