JRylB METHOD OF SHOEING. 221 



The Saharenes declare that the French shoes are 

 much too heavy, and in long and rapid excursions must 

 be dreadfully fatiguing to the articulations, and cause 

 much mischief to the fetlock joints. 'Look at our 

 horses,' say they, ' how they throw up the earth and sand 

 behind them ! How nimble they are ! How lightly they 

 lift their feet ! How they extend or contract their muscles ! 

 They would be as awkward and as clumsy as yours did 

 we not give them shoes light enough not to burden their 

 feet, and the materials of which, as they grow thinner, 

 commingle with the hoof, and with it form one solid 

 body.' When to these remarks General Daumas has 

 answered, that he did not discover any of the incon- 

 veniences pointed out in the European mode of shoe- 

 ing, the Arabs have replied : ' How should you do so ? 

 Cover, as we do, in a single day, the distance you take 

 five or six days to accomplish, and then you will see. 

 Grand marches you make, you Christians, with your 

 horses ! As far as from my nose to my ear ! ' 



Petrus Bellonius Cenomanus,' more than two hundred 



years ago, says that the shoes used by the Turks for their 



horses were in his day scarcely one-half the weight of the 



European shoes — one of the latter having material enough 



to make two of the former. The Turks were accustomed 



to buy the large and small shoes ready made, as at present, 



but the holes were not made in them. They were fitted to 



the feet, and the holes formed when required for use. 



The smith sat like a tailor with his legs doubled under 



him ; and bending over the anvil, with a well-tempered 



punch and hammer the shoe was perforated, and another 



sharp square punch was twisted round in them to widen 



' Aldrovandus. De Quadrnpedibus, p. 50. 



