MARCO POLO. 227 



and another of a woman similarly laid on a gold plate, 

 having bracelets and jewels of great value on the arms ; 

 while the third held the remains of a war-horse richly 

 caparisoned, with horse-shoes on the feet, and metal stir- 

 rups for the rider. This tumulus, no doubt, contained 

 the remains of some mighty Khan, though not of great 

 antiquity, since the stirrups attached to the horse s saddle 

 prove a comparatively late date. The shoes, by the 

 form they displayed, may have been of European work- 

 manship, and the whole deposit of the time of the great 

 Tartar invasion of Russia and Poland, between 1237 and 

 1 241.' When the Tartars were visited by mediaeval 

 travellers, they were already in what has been called 

 the iron stage of civilization. Marco Polo, who was one 

 of these visitors, when travelling in Badakshan, in the 13th 

 century, remarks that the country was an extremely cold 

 one, but that it produced a good breed of horses, which 

 ran with great speed over the wild tracts without being 

 shod with iron.^ This notice would almost lead to the 

 belief, that the people among whom he had been previously 

 travelling had resorted to this defence, and it is also an evi- 

 dence that he was acquainted with the practice in Europe. 

 Beauplan, travelling among the Tartars of the Ukraine 

 and the Crimea in the 17th century, says that 'when 

 the ground is hardened by frost or snow, the Tartars 

 fasten [cousent) under the feet of their horses bits of old 

 horn, with the intention of preventing their slipping and 

 preserving their hoofs from wear.' ^ 



' United Service Magazine, 1849. 



"" Narrative of the Travels of Marco Polo, p. 234. London, 1849. 

 2 Voyage au Midi de la Russie, 1680. ' Lorsque la terre est durcie 



I K * 



