Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/255

 and another of a woman similarly laid on a gold plate, having bracelets and jewels of great value on the arms; while the third held the remains of a war-horse richly caparisoned, with horse-shoes on the feet, and metal stirrups for the rider. This tumulus, no doubt, contained the remains of some mighty Khan, though not of great antiquity, since the stirrups attached to the horse's saddle prove a comparatively late date. The shoes, by the form they displayed, may have been of European workmanship, and the whole deposit of the time of the great Tartar invasion of Russia and Poland, between 1237 and 1241. When the Tartars were visited by mediæval travellers, they were already in what has been called the iron stage of civilization. Marco Polo, who was one of these visitors, when travelling in Badakshan, in the 13th century, remarks that the country was an extremely cold one, but that it produced a good breed of horses, which ran with great speed over the wild tracts without being shod with iron. This notice would almost lead to the belief, that the people among whom he had been previously travelling had resorted to this defence, and it is also an evidence that he was acquainted with the practice in Europe.

Beauplan, travelling among the Tartars of the Ukraine and the Crimea in the 17th century, says that 'when the ground is hardened by frost or snow, the Tartars fasten (cousent) under the feet of their horses bits of old horn, with the intention of preventing their slipping and preserving their hoofs from wear.'