Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/32

 and mules of that country are not shod. The wandering Mongols who roam between the Great Wall of China, the desert of Gobi, and the Russian frontier, with their flocks of sheep and droves of horses and cattle, do not employ shoes for their hardy but uncouth solipedes, according to the account of my friend and fellow-traveller, Mr Michie. Whenever a pony selected from a drove has become footsore from being ridden too long a time, the rider dismounts, a fresh steed is caught from the crowd, and the hoof-worn one is set at large again, to recover as it best may the loss it has sustained. So that a traveller often requires to change his invaluable steed when crossing these inhospitable wilds. But in this there does not appear to be any difficulty, as an exchange can be readily effected by paying a slight difference to the nomadic owner of a drove, who knows that by allowing the lame creatures to pasture quietly for a few weeks, they will soon have replaced the lost horn, and be as serviceable as ever.

It would appear, however, that horses are sometimes shod here, but they may only be Russian ones. Timkowski in travelling through this country, and when at a halting-place, writes: 'While the smith was shoeing our horses, a lama, who kept walking about, and seemed very attentive to what he was doing, suddenly mounted his horse and galloped away. It was afterwards discovered that this priest had stolen one of the smith's tools.'

Marco Polo, in the 13th century, travelling in Badakshan, says: 'The country is extremely cold, but it breeds