1. Bridoon. 2. Double ring snaffle. 3. Half-check jointed snaffle
PLATE XXI.—BIT FOUND ON THE ACROPOLIS. DATE 500 B.C.
The best road coachman I know in this country, and a man who probably never dropped a rein in his life, drives with his reins buckled. As to the question of the leaders running away, when of course buckled reins would catch in the terrets of the wheel horses' pads,—that is as though a man should sleep every night in a rope harness for getting out of windows in case of fire.
These two questions are typical of certain vapid discussions of questions relating to harness and harnessing, and they are also typical of how the student of such matters should settle them. Usage is the law of language, so, too, usage should not be dethroned in any department of life without good reason; but when usage becomes an empty form, and when a change makes for safety, comfort, and convenience, there should be no hesitation about making it.
The earliest form of vehicle and harness, and upon which all improvements have been built up, are the Indian pony with two long poles attached to his belly-band and a rawhide rope around his neck. There you have all the elements of a harness, but with no comfort and no convenience, and only the most precarious safety. In the famous picture, "Attila at Rome," by Raphael, the Huns are riding without bit or bridle, merely a rope or strap around the neck of their mounts. In certain pictures of Roman chariots there is but one rein attached to a snaffle-bit, and the horse was evidently guided by the pressure of the rein and the whip; though it is to be remembered that the complicated turnings of modern traffic and modern roads were unknown, and to keep straight, and to start and stop, were the main thing.
To begin at the beginning in a discussion of modern harness (Plate XXII.), it is proper to emphasize the fact that the very best leather is none too good, whether in your traces or in your reins. The best leather is made of the hides of heifers or steers and tanned with oak bark. The total supply of oak bark in England is only about three hundred thousand tons a year, which amount is quite insufficient; and most of the English leather is tanned by cheaper and quicker methods. The old oak-tanning process took eighteen months, and made leather of unequalled quality. To-day the process hardly consumes as many weeks, and in America, hemlock bark is the most important material used.