CLIMATE OF GREECE. ^^ 



The climate of Greece, it must not be forgotten, is 

 dry, and favourable to the hardness and durability of 

 horses' hoofs ; so that solipedes brought from the north or 

 west, where their journeys would be of a limited character 

 without shoes, may there acquire sufficient strength and 

 cohesiveness in the horny box covering the inferior ex- 

 tremity of the limbs, as to perform a certain amount of 

 labour with no defence. 



Paul Louis Courier,' who translated Xenophon's 

 treatise on horsemanship, was so pleased with his method 

 of managing the feet of horses, that during the very brief 

 campaign in Calabria in 1807, while with the army corps 

 to which he belonged, he rode horses without shoes, and, 

 as he believed, with advantage. In a note he adds : ' The 

 ancients did not shoe their horses ; this is evidenced in all 

 the writings and monuments they have left us, and we 

 cannot be astonished that the people who, in so many 

 different countries, do not know the use of shoes, should 

 not yet have introduced them. The Tonguses, as well as 

 the majority of the Tartars — the best and the most inde- 

 fatigable horsemen in the world — scarcely work at all in 

 iron ; and for that reason it is impossible for them to 

 shoe their steeds. The Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope 

 have little horses which are never shod, according to 

 Sparmann. And M. Thunberg has made the same re- 

 mark in the island of Java. Another traveller assures us, 

 that at Mogador, and- the west coast of Africa, all the 

 horses journey without shoes, and Niebuhr says the same 

 for those of Yemen. Pallas has seen the horses of the 

 Kalmucks, which have small and extremely hard hoofs, 



' Traite de Xenophon sur I'Equitation. Pantheon Litteraire. 



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