2 14 HORSE-SHOES AXD HORSE-SHOEING. 



of the Koran entitled 'Iron,' it is written: 'We for- 

 merly sent our apostles with evident miracles and argu- 

 ments ; and we sent down with them the scriptures, and 

 the balance, that men might observe justice; and we sent 

 them down iron, wherein is mighty strength for war, and 

 various advantages unto mankind, that^ God may know 

 who assisted him and his apostles in secret.' 



Sale explains the sentence, ' And we sent them down 

 iron,' as follows: ' that is, he taught them how to dig the 

 same from mines. Al Zamakhshari adds, that Adam is 

 said to have brought down with him from paradise five 

 things made of iron, viz. an anvil, a j^air of tongs, two 

 hammers (a greater and a lesser), and a needle.' 



In the chapter on ' Horses ' we are also led to infer 

 that shoeing was known. ' By the war-horses which run 

 swiftly to the battle, with a panting noise; and by those 

 which strike Jire, by dashing their houfs against the stones ; 

 and by those which make a sudden incursion on the 

 enemy early in the morning,' etc.'' Unshod hoofs, one 

 would be inclined to think, could not strike fire against 

 the stones, 



Heusinger^ quotes the names of several authorities 

 who were of opinion that the art of shoeing was carried 

 to Constantinople by the Germans. Certain it is, as has 

 been already noticed, that the 'Tactita' of the emperor 

 Leo VI., written at Constantinople in the ninth century, 

 is the first writing in which modern shoes and nails are 

 mentioned. The Byzantine emperors had a guard of honour 

 composed of Saxons from a very early period of the empire. 



' Sale. Koran, vol. ii. p. 36^5. ' Ibid. p. 440. 



3 Op. cit., vol. i. p. 9. 



