Both scrolls granted him certain ambassadorial powers. There was a long history of treating with foreign nations who did not speak Equestrian. While those days were now past—or had been thought to be—Celestia remembered them well, and picture-scrolls had often been used in lieu of legal documents, at least until the language barrier was crossed. For that matter, pictograms were still widely in use throughout the more rural enclaves of Equestria; universal education was a very recent innovation. Most of the books in the Ponyville library carried nearly as many illustrations as words. 