How did the Internet work before electricity?

Seriously? How did word of Galileo's telescope get to, say, Paris? How long did it take? Was the information packaged with other news of the day, other history? Were there travelers whose job it was to carry news kingdom-to-kingdom? Did the king get better channels than the peasants? If so, how?

The above sounds Euro-centric, so what did the Chinese do? The Hindus?

What was the maximum throughput? Did they load up wagons full of books?

What was the bit-per-mile gain of the printing press?