That the clay tablet should ever have been used for epistolary purposes seems strange to us who are accustomed to paper and envelopes. But it occupied no more space than many modern official letters, and was lighter to carry than most of the packages that pass through the parcel-post. Now and then it was enveloped in an outer covering of clay, on which the address and the chief contents of it were noted; but the public were usually prevented from knowing what it contained in another way. Before it was handed over to the messenger or postman it was “sealed,” which generally appears to mean that it was deposited in some receptacle, perhaps of leather or linen, which was then tied up and sealed. In fact, Babylonian and Assyrian letters were treated much as ours are when they are put into a post-bag to which the seals of the post-office are attached. There were excellent roads all over Western Asia, with post-stations at intervals where relays of horses could be procured. Along these all letters to or from the King and the government were carried by royal messengers. It is probable that the letters of private individuals were also carried by the same hands. The letters of Tel-el-Amarna give us some idea of the wide extension of the postal system and the ease with which letters were constantly being conveyed from one part of the East to another. The foreign correspondence of the Pharaoh was carried on with Babylonia and Assyria in the east, Mesopotamia and Cappadocia in the north, and Palestine and Syria in the west. The civilized and Oriental world was thus bound together by a network of postal routes over which literary intercourse was perpetually passing. They extended from the Euphrates to the Nile and from the plateau of Asia Minor to the confines of Arabia. These routes followed the old lines of war and trade along which armies had marched and merchants had travelled for unnumbered generations. The Tel-el-Amarna tablets show us that letter-writing was not confined to Assyria and Babylonia on the one hand, or to Egypt on the other. Wherever the ancient culture of Babylonia had spread, there had gone with it not only the cuneiform characters and the use of clay as a writing material, but the art of letter-writing as well. The Canaanite corresponded with his friends and neighbors quite as much as the Babylonian, and his correspondence was conducted in the same language and script. Hiram of Tyre, in sending letters to Solomon, did but carry on the traditions of a distant past. Long before the Israelites entered Palestine both a foreign and an inland postal service had been established there while it was still under Babylonian rule. The art of reading and writing must have been widely spread, and, when it is remembered that for the larger number of the Tel-el-Amarna writers the language and system of writing which they used were of foreign origin, it may be concluded that the education given at the time was of no despicable character.