CHAPTER XVI 



SPURS, ANCIENT AND MODERN 



Those who like to glean knowledge hastily, 

 and therefore superficially, will not find much 

 information about spurs in most dictionaries ; 

 and we fancy we are right in asserting that no- 

 body has written them up to date. Even that 

 admirable work, the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 

 icrnores them completely ; yet it mentions horse- 

 manship and other equine matters, such as bits 

 and saddles. The British Museum has a poor 

 collection, chiefly Mexican ones. So, needless 

 to add, that primitive spurs is a precious tough 

 subject to get up. It has saddened many people 

 who have tried to tackle it. The difficulty lies in 

 finding out what sort of a " heel shod with iron," 

 to use a phrase of Virgil's, was worn previous to 

 the Norman Conquest. 



A good many authorities declare that the ancient 

 Greeks knew about, yet did not use, spurs. But 

 they possibly had one, made of bronze, with a 

 solid point on a semicircle, whose extremities 

 were pierced with holes, through which thongs 

 were put in order to fasten them on. Certainly 

 the Romans had similar ones in iron to those just 

 described. They were used in the Augustan 

 age ; their historians prove this conclusively. 



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