Mail in the Indus Valley of Sindh was delivered by runners and charged by weight and the distance traveled by the runners. In 1850, Sir Bartle Frere of the East India Company became the the Chief Commissioner of Sindh and created a postal system that had a uniform rate for all distances. This postal system created a need for a method to prepay postage. As a result, the X was created. It bears the Merchant's Mark of the British East India Company, a design embossed on sealing wax (Figure).
The name X derives from the British spelling of the name of the province of Sindh, and the anglicised spelling of the Hindustani word used to describe the postal service using runners.
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Scinde Dawk
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