PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 165 



filed into teeth. Three stays are fixed crosswise, on which 

 are placed loose rings, the jingle of these being supposed 

 to please the horse or camel while he is being groomed. 

 If we place this instrument alongside one of our own 

 currycombs, we shall see at once that the latter is simply 

 a combination of three of the Asiatic ones placed side by 

 side, and fixed to a plate at the back. This multiplication 

 necessitated a handle, as the whole became too broad to 

 grasp by the back, and the teeth had to be made smaller. 

 Still, for a shaggy beast, Hke a camel, or an uncfipped 

 horse or mule, the ancient form is better, as being more 

 elastic. 



The horseshoe is a plate of iron with a small hole in 

 the centre, and the European shape is only a modification 

 of this into a rim of iron. Many antiquaries have fancied 

 that the Romans did not shoe their horses, but this is a 

 mistake.* The very fact of their paving their roads shows 

 they must have shod their horses ; and besides this, horse- 

 shoes have been found in Roman remains in many places. 

 Professor Church tells me that he has examined the 

 equestrian statue of a Roman Emperor at Orange, in 

 France, and on the upturned foot of the horse, little points 

 are marked in the marble, shewing the nails. 



* This error is based on the assumption that a horse-shoe is not mentioned by any 

 classical writer. Negative evidence is very dubious at best ; but even this negative 

 evidence cannot be admitted : for in Suetonius' " Life of Vesp.isian " there is a capital 

 story of the Emperor's muleteer stopping to have his mule shod in order to give some 

 friend of his an opportunity of presenting a petition to Vespasian. The latter saw 

 through the trick : and when they were ready to start again he remarked that the 

 petitioner ought to pay half the smith's clrarge, seeing it was as much on his account 

 as the Emperor's that the work had been done ! 



A similar error has been fallen into by Antiquaries with regard to the supposed 

 absence of camels in Egypt, anciently, on the ground that they are never shown on 

 Egyptian monuments. Even Dr Mommsen, the most fascinating writer on Roman 

 antiquities, asserts that the camel was unknown in Egypt until the third century of the 

 Christian Era. The narrative in Genesis, of the camel caravan that took Joseph to 

 Egypt, would alone disprove such a statement ; besides the fact that the came! is 

 figured on one of the monuments. But Flinders I'etrie, in his " Ten Years Digging 

 in Egypt," gives a figure of camels that are scratched on stones older than any of the 

 monuments in that land ! 



