HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 481 



to the ancient world, and whicli is in truth simply a modern, as it is also 

 a most uncalled-for, barbarism. No iron helped to produce the heavy 

 sound of solid horn which Virgil ascribes to the fiery steed of Pollux. 

 Of late years we have heard much of the unjustifiable waste of time 

 spent on classical literature which has no practical bearing on the in- 

 terests of modern life. It is unfortunate that Xenophon's treatise on 

 the management of horses has not formed one of the subjects for the 

 upper forms of our public schools ; and it would be well if they were 

 made to read with care a book written by one who wrote unfettered 

 by the restraints of any traditional system, and who successfully brought 

 the cavalry, as well as the infantry, of the Cyreian army of Greeks 

 from the plains of Babylon to the shores of the Euxine. There they 

 would see how thoi'oughly the rules laid down by the leader of the Ten 

 Thousand for the selection and management of horses are in accord- 

 ance with the highest scientific knowledge of the present day, and how 

 happy an ignorance he displays of the long and dismal catalogue of dis- 

 eases and miseries which a wrong-headed and ridiculous system has 

 called into existence. No horses could be subjected to a more severe 

 strain in every limb of their body than were those which Xenophon led 

 from Cunaxa over the Armenian highlands to the walls of Trebizond ; 

 yet we hear nothing of any special difiiculties arising from diseases of the 

 foot or leg. It may probably be said with truth that the strain endured 

 by those horses could be borne only by unshod animals. Paul Louis Cou- 

 rier, the French translator of Xenophon's treatise, was so struck by the 

 apparent soundness of his method, that he put it to the test by riding 

 unshod horses in the Calabrian campaign of 1807, and he did so with 

 complete success. But that which with him was a voluntary experi- 

 ment has been for others an involuntary necessity. This was the case 

 with many of our cavalry-horses during the Indian Mutiny, and their 

 riders have declared that they were never better mounted in their 

 lives. In the retreat of the French from Moscow, the horses, " Free 

 Lance " remarks, lost all their shoes before they reached the Vistula ; 

 yet they found their way to France over hard, rough, and frozen 

 ground. In his invasion of America, Cortes could not carry about 

 with him the anvils, forges, and iron needed for shoeing even the small 

 number of horses which he had with him. But these horses did their 

 work and survived it, and from them comes the fierce mustang of Mex- 

 ico, which still goes unshod. There is great force in the remark of 

 " Free Lance," that horses are not indigenous to America, this being 

 their first introduction, and that the climate and locality, therefore, 

 hav^e not that influence over the hoof which they are commonly sup- 

 posed to have. The small horses of the irregular cavalry at the Cape, 

 which took part in the battle of Ulundi, had no shoes on their hind- 

 feet, and few were shod even in front, but they held out longer and 

 went miles farther than the shod animals ; and no complaints were 

 made of any of them falling lame, although, as " Free Lance " adds, 



TOL. XVIII. 31 



