INTRODUCTION. J 29 



are of comparative modern invention, but we refer 

 to the horse-shoe found at Tournay in the tomb of 

 the Frankish king, Childeric (who died about 480), 

 which Mr. Bracy Clark would ascribe to a mule be- 

 cause it is small, when he should have considered 

 the horses were of low stature ; * and if it were of 

 a mule, still would prove the practice of shoeing. 

 We know, moreover, that the Asiatics of the north 

 made a variety of horse-shoes for many ages ; and 

 in the high region of the Kirguise country, even 

 now, they shoe their horses with pieces of deers' 

 antlers, and in Iceland occasionally sheep's horn, 

 in both cases effected by the peasants, and not by 

 regular farriers. In Southern Asia, where the far 

 greater proportion of the earth's surface consists of 

 sandy plains and dry deserts, the horses' hoofs are 

 hard, and therefore do not even now suffer the ope- 

 ration of shoeing, at best a questionable advantage ; 

 hence none of the Arab or Persian nations wanted 

 or invented them. The marches of Alexander may 

 have been impeded, and the operations of Mithri- 

 dates thwarted, by their horses being overworked in 

 rocky districts ; and it is sufficiently clear that in 

 Rome horse-shoeing was unknown to the end of 

 the republic, and began in the time of CaBsar. Vir- 

 gil seems to have been guided by his feelings for 



* A mule in the tomb of a northern king, a Frank, would 

 have been an insult to his memory. As Pagans and horse- 

 eacrificers, the object is sufficiently clear, and the size of the 

 animal corresponds to the era and the race of horses then used 

 in Germany. 



I 



