250 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



19. Belaying. — An important element in transportation is resting and 

 relaying.* In most rude carrying-devices the greatest effort is put forth 

 in rising from the ground or in getting the load in place. The organ- 

 grinder and the coolie carry staves, on which they rest their load when 

 they are fatigued. The Damara girl lifts her load from her head and 

 holds it aloft on both hands while she proceeds on her journey. The 

 soldier shifts his weapons; the Malagasy bearers replace one another 

 under the poles of the filanzana, or carrying- chair, without interrupting 

 their journey. The Montezumashad relays of runners between the sea 

 and the city of Mexico, so as to receive fish and other lowland products 

 in a fresh condition. 



20. Couriers. — From this inquiry must not be omitted the courier, 

 swift messenger of tidings, earthly prototype of Hermes, who was suc- 

 ceeded later by horses, dromedaries, carrier-pigeons, sltips on the sea, 

 steam-cars on land, and, last of all, the telegraph. His modern sur- 

 vival is the district and telegraph messenger boy. I have seen some- 

 where the picture of a naked Kaffir running at full speed, bearing in 

 one hand a pair of assegais and in the other a rod split at the upper end 

 to receive a letter, carried thus to keep it from being soiled by contact 

 with his naked body. 



In ancient Mexico, says Prescott, "communication was maintained 

 with the remotest parts of the country by means of couriers. Post- 

 houses were established on great roads, about two leagues distant from 

 each other. The courier, bearing his dispatches in the form of a hiero- 

 glyphic painting, ran with them to the first station, where they were 

 taken by another messenger and carried forward to the next, and so on 

 until they reached the capital. These couriers, trained from childhood, 

 traveled with incredible swiftness, not four or five leagues an hour, as 

 an old chronicler would make us believe, but with such speed that dis- 

 patches were carried from one to two hundred miles a day."t 



There is no doubt that all of these various devices have had their in- 

 fluence in shaping and deforming the human body. Students of crani- 

 ology and anthropometry should have their attention called to the fact 

 that among savages the use of carrying-pads, straps, and other devices 

 about the head commences just as soon as the child can walk, with little 

 loads at first in small baskets, wallets, nets, frames, or what not, when 



* Hinds's ''Labrador," vol. I, p. 43. 



t Conquest of Mex., Phila. , 1874, vol. i, p. 43. For an exciting account of couriers 

 with lighted torches proclaiming the new cycle, id., 130, compare C. A. Muray, Travels 

 in North America, New York, 1839, vol. i, p. 193, who says that an Indian of his party 

 traveled a hundred miles in four and twenty hours. Prescott also alludes to Plutarch's 

 account of the Greek who brought the news of victory to Platsea, 125 miles, in a day; to 

 pedestrian capabilities of man in a savage state collected by Buffon ; to Marco Polo's 

 account of couriers in China in the thirteenth century ; to Anderson's account of Gov- 

 ernment couriers in China in 1796. (Conq. of Mex., Phila., vol. I, p. 44, note.) "Noth- 

 ing in the world is borne so swiftly as messages by the Persian couriers." (Herod., 

 Urania, 98.) In this ease horses were used as in the pony mail formerly in use across 

 the plains, but tho man or courier went on. 



