Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/93

Rh a terribly dull time and often have sighed for the good old days of worldly-minded Chandragupta.

Communication between the capital and the provinces was maintained by the river waterways and a system of roads, the principal of which was the royal highway leading from Pataliputra to the Indus through Taxila, the forerunner of Lord Dalhousie's Grand Trunk Road. Distances were marked by pilla1's erected at intervals of ten stadia, or half a kôs, about an English mile and a quarter. Asoka added a well beside each pillar, and further consulted the comfort of travellers by planting trees for shade and fruit, and by providing rest-houses and sheds supplied with drinking—water. The communications must have been good to make possible the control of the whole empire from a capital situated so far to the east as Pâataliputra.