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CHAPTER V.

SHOEING AMONG EASTERN NATIONS. BRAND-MARK

OF

CIRCASSIAN HORSES. LYCIAN TRIQUETRA. THE HEGIRA. TARTAR HOrse-shoes. THE KORAN. INTRODUCTION OF SHOEING TO CONSTANTINOPLE. ARAB TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS. ARAB SHOES, AND MANAGEMENT OF THE HOOFS. SYRIAN, ALGERIAN, AND MOORISH SHOES. HORSES ON A JOURNEY. INSTINCT OF ARAB HORSES. ARAB METHOD OF SHOEING. COMPARISON BETWEEN FRENCH AND ARAB METHODS. CENOMANUS. STRONG HOOFS. MUSCAT. PORTUGAL, SPAIN, AND TRANSYLVANIA. CENTRAL ASIA. JOHN BELL AND TARTAR TOMBS. TARTAR SONGS. PEKING AND ITS

MARCO POLO. COSSACKS.

NEIGHBOURHOOD.

CHINESE SHOEING.

SHOEING BULLOCKS.

NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS AND PARFLÊCHE.

AT what period Eastern nations first began to apply an iron defence to their horses' feet, and attach it by nails, it is impossible to fix with certainty. An anonymous writer in the United Service Magazine for 1849, quotes the form of the most ancient Asiatic horse-shoe as being exemplified in the brand-mark of a renowned breed of Circassian or Abassian horses, known by the name of

Shalokh. The shape is perfectly circular, and instead of being fastened on by means of nails driven through the corneous portion of the hoof, it is secured by three clamps (fig. 68), that appear to have been closed on the outside, or on the ascending surface. Of

fig. 68

BRAND-MARK OF CIRCASSIAN HORSES.

211

the antiquity of this form of shoe there is no possibility of judging, because the exact counterpart of it existed already at the period when the Ionian Greeks had established fixed symbols as types of their cities and communities. It occurs on the coins of Lycia, and is known to numismatists by the name of Triquetra (fig. 69). If there be any difference, it is in a row of points on the Lycian type, as if the shoe had been perforated with holes for small nails (fig. 70); and what makes the selection

fig. 69

fig. 70

of this object for a symbol of the region. in question the more remarkable is, that, in remote antiquity, it was there Celtic breeders are reported to have first commenced their trade in mules. The horseshoes of early historians, since they do not mention farriers, appear to have been of this Lycian form, or were not fastened with nails driven through the horny hoof. It is difficult to escape an admission that horse-shoes of this kind are as old as the Ionian establishments in Asia Minor, unless by denying that neither the Circassian brand-mark nor the Triquetra of Lycia represent them; a conclusion which at least is totally at variance with the denomination of the mark by which the Kabardian breed is known, time out of mind. ... The round shoe of the old Arabian method is evidentiy a modification of the Circassian or Lycian, the outside clamps being omitted, and nail-holes substituted. . . . That the Arabs of the Hegira (A.D. 622), or within a generation later, shod their horses, is plain, if we believe the received opinion that the iron-work on the summit of

the standard of Hosein, at Ardbeil, was made from a horse-shoe belonging to Abbas, uncle of Mohammed, by order of his daughter Fatima. "It was brought," says the legend, "from Arabia by Scheik Sed Reddeen, son of the holy Scheik Sofi, who was son of another holy villager, after the manner of the Moslem!" If the intention had been to advance a mere falsehood, it is to be wondered that Fatima, or the Prophet himself, should not have furnished a sacred shoe of one of the celebrated mares, from which sprung so many of the first breeds of Arabia, according to the assertions of devout Moslems. A horse-shoe most likely it was,' adds this writer, but how an uncle of Mohammed should possess horses when the Bein Koreish, as a tribe, were without, and the Prophet himself in the beginning of his career had only three, is quite another question.'

It appears very unlikely that such an article as that shown in the Circassian brand-mark could ever have been employed as a shoe, or fixed to the hoof by the three clamps indicated above; but to show that the Lycian triquetra could not be intended to represent a horse-shoe, I have copied in figures 68, 69, 70, and 71, this and similar impressions of coins. Figure 69 is the plain triquetra, from the original in the British Museum, and resembling Col. Smith's (who is, I believe, the author of the article just quoted from) Circassian shoe, in having no dots or points; 70 is the triquetra that the writer refers to; the original is in the Bibliothèque at Paris, but a drawing of it is given in Sir Charles Fellows' work on the Coins of Lycia. It will be seen that the points could not

1 Coins of Ancient Lycia before the Reign of Alexander. London,

LYCIAN TRIQUETRA.

213

correspond to holes for small nails, wherewith to attach a shoe to a hoof, as they extend along the clamp which Col. Smith says was employed to grasp the front of the hoof. Fellows also gives a copy (No. 30) of a fourlimbed figure belonging to this class (fig. 71), the original being in the British Museum, and which

could never be meant to represent a shoe.

fig. 71

Sir Charles Fellows does not attempt to explain the origin or import of the triquetra, and it would certainly require a lively imagination to associate it in any way with horse-shoes. On the contrary, a very frequent device on the ancient coins of Pamphylia is three human legs, arranged like the hooks on the triquetra, and the same as borne by the currency of the Isle of Man. Figure 72 is a copy of an ancient coin in the British Museum, which has

neither prongs nor men's legs, but cocks' heads! Surely there is nothing here to offer the remotest conjecture as to the origin of Eastern shoeing!

fig. 72

Col. Smith asserts that there are indeed ancient Tartar horse-shoes of a circular form, apparently with only three nails or fasteners to the outside of the hoof;' but we may be pardoned for doubting the correctness of this statement.

That shoeing was known among the Arabs as early as the days of Mohammed, appears certain. In the chapter

1855. Fig. 25. I am greatly indebted to Mr A. T. Murray of the British Museum, for tracings and impressions of these interesting and rare coins.

of the Koran entitled 'Iron,' it is written: 'We formerly sent our apostles with evident miracles and arguments; and we sent down with them the scriptures, and the balance, that men might observe justice; and we sent them down iron, wherein is mighty strength for war, and various advantages unto mankind, that God may know who assisted him and his apostles in secret.'

Sale explains the sentence,' And we sent them down iron,' as follows: that is, he taught them how to dig the same from mines. Al Zamakhshari adds, that Adam is said to have brought down with him from paradise five things made of iron, viz. an anvil, a pair of tongs, two hammers (a greater and a lesser), and a needle.'

In the chapter on Horses' we are also led to infer that shoeing was known. By the war-horses which run swiftly to the battle, with a panting noise; and by those which strike fire, by dashing their hoofs against the stones; and by those which make a sudden incursion on the enemy early in the morning,' etc. Unshod hoofs, one would be inclined to think, could not strike fire against the stones.

Heusinger quotes the names of several authorities who were of opinion that the art of shoeing was carried to Constantinople by the Germans. Certain it is, as has been already noticed, that the "Tactita' of the emperor Leo VI., written at Constantinople in the ninth century, is the first writing in which modern shoes and nails are mentioned. The Byzantine emperors had a guard of honour composed of Saxons from a very early period of the empire. 2 Ibid. p. 440.

Sale. Koran, vol. ii. p. 365.

3 Op. cit., vol. i. p. 9.