Genesis

From earliest times the peoples of the world have soughtmeans of communicating with each other. These effortsmay be traced to the very mists of antiquity, and beforeany means of written thoughts had come into use we maybe sure that runners carried spoken messages betweentribes. Inca runners carried quipus — a strange collectionof cords tied to a stick with the cords knotted so that the

Figure 1. Inca courier

runner bearing them could slip each through his fingersand, as in counting rosary beads, recite the messages the

knots recalled to memory. The Dak runners of India worebells around their necks to frighten away the beasts ofthe jungle as they ran their courses through the night.Darius of the ancient land we now know as Iran hadestablished a vast and efficient system of delivering mes-sages to his governors and military leaders. This greatsystem inspired Herodotus to write of them the wordswhich are presently emblazoned in the stone facade ofthe great Post Office in New York: "Neither snow, norrain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriersfrom the swift completion of their appointed rounds."Everywhere that tribes had formed and the beginningsof civilization had started, the first need was for commu-nication with other tribes, and systems of communicationwere set up according to the need and the ability of therulers to maintain them. No one may claim the originof the postal system. In one form or another it existedin all places on the earth wherever there were people,in all of the civilizations that have preceded our own.