84 HORSES AND ROADS. 



constant work they have had naturally keeps them 

 devoid of superfluous flesh ; but, for all this, they 

 are as hard as nails, and good in the wind.' All 

 through the reports on the war, not a complaint was 

 made as to these horses falling lame. Surely there 

 must be something in this. Sheets of wet, slippery 

 rock, and rolling stones in river beds, would be 

 calculated to try the hoofs to the utmost ; yet in the 

 pursuit of the Zulus, when they fled at Ulundi, 

 these ' ponies ' (from 14|- hands downwards) were 

 able, we are told, to follow miles further than the 

 shod horses. 



Military farriers are no better than others. In 

 fact, it does not appear, even in the army, that any 

 previous knowledge is thought necessary to make 

 a man a farrier, any more than it is generally 

 supposed necessary to get the consent of an eel 

 to his being skinned alive. Mr. Douglas says : 

 ' With facts before me, is it a wonder that I should 

 blame the bad shoeing smiths of the army for much, 

 if not most, of the mischief; the once tailors, 

 haberdashers, colliers, and clodhoppers, but now 

 farriers, who first lame the horses until they are 

 unable to walk, and then are cast and sold for a few 

 pounds ? In my own regiment, the 10th Hussars, 

 just before it went out to India, out of fifteen farrier 

 sergeants and shoeing smiths, there were only the 

 farrier-major and two others that had been farriers 

 before they joined the army. One of the remaining 

 twelve had been bred a tailor, and, as a tailor, had 

 worked for the regiment; a second had been a 



