The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.354

v3.c20.354

In parts of India a modification of this system still exists. The staff, or short spear, with its cluster of bells, is still carried, but the runner’s stage is about five miles, which he is expected to cover, at his peculiar jog-trot, in an hour, but these runners carry bags containing the public mails. Tughluq’s apparently carried only a few official dispatches and, as Ibn Batūtah says, ran at full speed. Five minutes would therefore be a liberal allowance of time for each stage, and, as there was no delay at the post-houses, it may be calculated that news travelled at the rate of nearly two hundred miles in twenty-four hours. News of Ibn Batūtah’s arrival at the mouth of the Indus reached Delhi, between eight hundred and nine hundred miles distant by the postal route, in five days. The king was thus in close touch with the remotest corners of his kingdom, and the service was rapid even for heavier burdens. In the next reign fresh fruit was transported from Khurāsān and Ganges water for the royal table from Hindūstān to Daulatābād on the heads of postal runners.