192 SHOEING CAVALllY HORSES IN INDIA. 
great heat it is not then of long continuance. The parts of 
Asia so famous for horse breeding is not inundated ; and it 
is partly owing to this hardness of the hoof that foals are 
able to follow their dams on a journey, and horses to travel 
without shoes, or with thin shoes on the fore feet only. The 
hard horn resists wear, but on hard ground, or when stony, 
it is liable to be broken at the edge of the crust, the sharp 
edge of which is rounded off to prevent this ; and if it is not 
sufficient, a thin shoe, twice as thick at the toe as the heels, 
and wide in the web, is applied, by removing a like propor- 
tion of horn from the base of the hoof. The cut part re- 
moved is substituted by iron in juxta-position to the parts 
from whence the horn had been cut away, leaving no space 
between the hoof and shoe. The test of good shoeing here 
is, that water will not pass between the hoof and the shoe, 
or broad bearing on it. 
The method of carrying this out is — the groom holds up 
the horse’s foot by means of a strap round the pastern ; the 
shoer then stoops, or rather sits down on his heels, opposite 
the foot, holding it in the left hand, and in the right hand a 
cutting instrument, similar to an agricultural bagging-hook 
with the point broken off ; or another, the blade of which is 
like the English farriers’ buttress, only the handle is re- 
versed, and at the side, as the man cuts towards himself. 
Beginning at the heels, he removes as much horn as before 
described from the toe, and half as much from the heels, 
part of the sole and crust being made on the same level. 
He places a quoit on the ground, into the hole of which 
he drives the foot of a small anvil, about three inches dia- 
meter ; on this he places a thin mould, which, being charcoal 
iron, is very tough ; it is somewhat smaller in size than the 
size of the hoof, because iron is ductile, so as to be hammered 
out larger, but the fibres cannot be again contracted in the 
cold state. When he has hand-hammered the mould to the 
size of the hoof, its outer edge is under-hammered, by having 
the flat surface near the edge indented with a chisel, and the 
outer edgeffieing afterwards hammered, it forms on the edge 
of the flat surface a ridge, within which large circular nail- 
holes are punched, over the hole in the anvil. All this is 
done by the shoer, without assistance, in a very short time. 
The shoe is then placed flat on the level part of the sole 
and crust. The shoe is frequently short, oftentimes not 
reaching to the points of the heels, which being the part the 
man begins to pare, is somewhat curved, or not on a level 
with the other pared parts, but, the points of the heels rest- 
ing on the shoe, is not considered necessary by the natives, 
