622 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



plished the whole distance of twenty-two English miles 



in eighteen hours We had not gone half-a-mile 



from Schleswig before we found a very heavy piece of 

 siege artillery forsaken on the road. The eight horses 

 which dragged it had become, owing to the state of the 

 roads, as powerless as so many new-littered kittens, and 

 all the efforts of the men to share the work with them 

 were unavailing. In the same manner, as we advanced 

 on our dismal march, we, who were in the rear, came 

 up with broken carriages, dismounted caissons, and horses 

 fallen nev^er to rise. The obstruction to our progress 

 was indescribable.' 



These examples will, perhaps, be sufficient to illus- 

 trate the influence this art has in maintaining the efficiency 

 of armies, and what grave calamities may ensue when, 

 for lack of foresight, or through carelessness, its most 

 essential details are neglected, and the chief part of an 

 expedition is left helpless at the most trying emergencies. 

 For what, asks M. Bouley, can be more discouraging or 

 painful to an army in retreat, than to leave behind its 

 weak, sick, and wounded men, and its guns, ammunition, 

 baggage, and provisions, to be destroyed by the weather, 

 or to fall into the hands of perhaps a merciless enemy, 

 when some simple device, suitable to the occasion, would 

 have saved all ? 



It is fortunate that, in modern times, instances of 

 public inconvenience occasioned by want of shoeing 

 are remarkably rare in the annals of civil life, for it does 

 not require much to prove how greatly the every-day 

 routine of commerce is dependent upon horses, and 

 therefore upon horse-shoes. Only think for a moment 



