Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/257

Rh nails; and, having covered them with golden trappings, let them go and fetch Sobra.' That horses were shod in this part of the world with plates like those now in use in Europe, in the 16th century, we find testified in another Tartar song on the capture of Kazan by the Russians in 1552. Alluding to the famous war-horse of a prince, it relates that 'under the feet of Argamack the horse-shoes look like new moons. Its tail and mane are painted with hennah; on its back hang silk trappings; on its neck, in a talisman, round like a ring, is a prayer.' It is a remarkable circumstance, that in the neighbourhood of Peking, and from thence throughout Eastern Tartary, as far as I have travelled, shoes resembling in shape those of this country are in general wear. I could learn nothing of the antiquity of the custom in this remote part of the world; but the shoes are extremely primitive, and very like those we have been describing as Celtic. In journeying toward the eastern termination of the Great Wall, 'you cannot help bestowing a passing glance at the operations of the Ting-chang-ta, as the shoer of hoofs is denominated, for you may require his assistance frequently during your travel to secure your pony's clanking shoes, or to adjust a new pair; and you are certain to find him busy in the most crowded thoroughfare, or in the most stirring corner of the market-place. He is not, generally, a very bold man in his calling, nor has he much patience with skittish or unmanageable solipeds; for he too often makes it his practice to secure the unruly or vicious brute in the old-fashioned "trevises,"