ON DRAUGHT. 



535 



specimen of this, the light, muscular, little horse, which is capable of consider- 

 able exertion is nearly lifted from the ground, and prevented from making any 

 exertion, by the traces leading upwards; while the feeble old horse, scarcely 

 capable of carrying his own body, is nearly dragged to the ground, and com- 

 pelled to employ his whole strength in carrying himself, and even part of the 

 weight of the leader ; so that the strength of the one willing and able to work 

 is not employed, and the other is so overloaded as to be useless. 



The mode of attaching the traces does not admit of much variety The 

 shoulders have always been made use of for this purpose. 



Homer, who is supposed to have lived about 

 900 years b.c, describes very minutely, in the 

 twenty-fourth book of the Iliad, the mode of har- 

 nessing horses at the time of the siege of Troy, 

 nearly 3000 years ago ; but if we suppose that his 

 description was taken from the harness in use in 

 his own time, it is still referring to a period about 

 twenty-seven centuries back. 



A simple strap, formed of several thicknesses of 

 leather, so as to be very stiff, and fitted well to 

 the neck and shoulders, served as a collar, as 

 seen at A A, (figs. 11, 12). A second strap, B B, 

 passed round the body, and was attached to the 

 shoulder-strap at the withers. At this point was 

 fixed the yoke, C C, which was fixed to the pole. 



A pair of horses were thus yoked together, without traces or breechings, as 

 oxen are seen at the present time in many-parts of the country. 



This was a simple arrangement, but by no means a bad one ; and it would 

 appear that they performed all the manoeuvres of cavalry with chariots and 

 horses thus harnessed. The pair yoked to the pole were called yoked horses : 

 abreast of these was frequently placed what was called an outer horse, with a 

 Bimple shoulder-strap or collar F F, and a single trace, G G, passing inside, as 

 in fig. 13. Sometimes there were two of those horses, one on each side, each 

 furnished with his strap or collar and trace. These straps, if well fitted, were 

 not bad ; but as they must have pressed in some degree upon the throat, they 

 could not be equal to the collar of the yoked horses, still less to the collar at 

 present used. 



In more modern times these shoulder-straps gave place to the breast-strap. 

 A horse can no doubt exert a considerable strain against such a strap, but in 

 action it must impede the movement of the shoulder. 



