In Italy and Spain practically all traffic was four-footed. Post-horses were always for hire in Italy, with a bit of fur attached to their bridles to mark their status. The owner gave the hirer a ticket to show his host at the end of the day's journey, who would then take care of the horse until a return fare was forthcoming; no security was asked. It was a novel experience for most foreigners to ride one post-horse all day: in England the stages were ten miles; in France, in the seventeenth century, four or five, so that a traveller in a hurry would change horses as many as eighteen to twenty-two times a day. The reason for the difference lay in the pace, the standard for which was much lower in a country like Italy, where mules and asses were habitually used. In fact, when the pace was set by the mules, as, for instance, in the Rome-Naples caravans, all who accompanied which had to keep together for fear of robbers, a man might be in the saddle all day and cover no more than twenty miles. As for wheeled traffic, it may be imagined from the state of the roads that the pace often sank to nothing at all. After several breakdowns, one traveller writes: "Advanced that day as far as the cursed carriages would give us leave, and the rest of the day practised Christian patience.... Carts ought to be put in the Litany." The above must be understood as leaving Muscovy out of account, for that was the one country where the journey itself could, under favourable circumstances, be continued with comfort. Once the ground was hard enough for sledges, the traveller could travel night and day and yet sleep as long as he felt inclined. Nor did the gain end with positive comfort and double the available time, since the diminished strain on the horses enabled them to go at a greater pace for a longer period. Twelve leagues without a change of horses and a hundred leagues in three days represent what was practicable in the ordinary way amid a Russian winter; treble what would be reckoned good for any conveyance elsewhere. In Dante's "Purgatorio" (II, 11-12) is a comparison well commented on, unconsciously, in these travel-books. It is when he speaks of himself wandering Come gente che pensa a suo cammino, Che va col core, e col corpo dimora.