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 disease, 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 excellent 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 afforded 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 maréchaux, before they have lost their precious qualities.'[1] 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 (jusqu'à la rosée) 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.
