682 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



Years of shoeing in this rude fashion do not alter the 

 shape of the Arab horse's hoofs ; the longest day's ride, no 

 matter how fast or fatiguing, whether on burning sand or 

 on sun-baked rocky ground, will seldom, if ever, cause 

 him to have inflamed feet. Foot diseases, so far as my 

 experience in Turkey and Syria goes, are all but unknown ; 

 and that most formidable of all maladies — navicular dis- 

 ease, I could neither see nor learn anything about. And 

 any one who has seen Turk or Arab ride, will scarcely 

 venture to say that they, as a rule, spare their horses on 

 a journey, or ride as if they were afraid of laming them. 

 And yet what happens when these Eastern horses come 

 to Europe, and instead of their own primitive farriery, 

 are shod upon improved principles? M. Megnin, an ex- 

 cellent authority on this subject, when speaking of the 

 damage done by paring and hollowing out the sole, says : 

 ' The best proof of the inconveniences of this practice is 

 aff^orded us by the horses we obtain from Africa to mount 

 our light cavalry. These horses, had they remained in their 

 own country, would have preserved their hoofs as models 

 of perfect health ; but they are not six months in the 

 hands of our marecJiaux, before they have lost their pre- 

 cious qualities.' ' And elsewhere he remarks : ' A shoe, no 

 matter how clumsily it may be placed upon an unpared 

 foot, does not cause one-tenth the injury that a fine shoe 

 carefully attached to a hoof pared nearly to the quick 

 [jiisqiia la rose'e) will do.' ' This is seen every day in our 

 mounted corps. What are the horses which furnish the 

 largest number of cripples with contracted feet, corns, and 



' Op. cit., p. 154. 



