THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE
ing the period of its elaboration, the question of facilities of travel was not neglected. They had, indeed, previously received some attention. Thus arrangements had been made in the seventh century for relays of horses along the principal highways, but the use of these animals being restricted to officials, no convenient means of travel existed for private individuals. Moreover the task of teaching the people how to build bridges and construct roads was left to Buddhist priests, of whom it must be recorded that into whatever excesses they were subsequently betrayed by prosperity, their influence during the early epochs in Japan was of the most wholesome and civilising character. At the commencement of the eighth century, however, the spirit of reform and organisation animating officialdom extended to inter-provincial communications. Roads were divided into three classes; regulations for their repair were enacted; post towns were established along the highways, one in every stretch of seventy-five miles, their affairs superintended by a headman who derived funds for that purpose as well as for his own remuneration from tracts of land allotted to the towns; provision of horses and oxen was made at each station; strict rules were laid down concerning the number of animals to which each traveller was entitled according to his rank; private persons, if they belonged to the fifth or any higher grade, were authorised, when making a journey, to demand lodging in a town hall;
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