The chariots were of little good when the fighting had to be done in a mountainous country. In the level parts of Western Asia, where good roads had existed for untold centuries, they were a powerful arm of offence, but the Assyrians were constantly called upon to attack the tribes of the Kurdish and Armenian mountains who harassed their positions, and in such trackless districts the chariots were an incumbrance and not a help. Trees had to be cut down and rocks removed in order to make roads along which they might pass. The Assyrian engineers indeed were skilled in the construction of roads of the kind, and the inscriptions not infrequently boast of their success in carrying them through the most inaccessible regions, but the necessity for making them suitable for the passage of chariots was a serious drawback, and we hear at times how the wheels of the cars had to be taken off and the chariots conveyed on the backs of mules or horses. It was not wonderful, therefore, that the Assyrian kings, who were practical military men, soon saw the advantage of imitating the custom of the northern and eastern mountaineers, who used the horse for riding purposes rather than for drawing a chariot. The chariot continued to be employed in the Assyrian army, but rather as a luxury than as an effective instrument of war. At first the cavalry were little more than mounted horsemen. Their only weapons were the bow and arrow, and they rode without saddles and with bare legs. At a later period part of the cavalry was armed with spears, saddles were introduced, and the groom who had run by the side of the horse disappeared. At the same time, under Tiglath-pileser III., the rider’s legs were protected by leathern drawers over which high boots were drawn, laced in front. This was an importation from the north, and it is possible that many of the horsemen were brought from the same quarter. Sennacherib still further improved the dress by adding to it a closely fitting coat of mail.