The perforations do not go through the boot or shoe, and in a Roman example in the British Museum, which is much more highly decorated, there are two thicknesses of leather, of which the outer one only is pierced. (See Figure 65.) In many cases, however, the Roman shoe was truly of open work. It consisted of but one thickness of leather, and from this, large pieces were cut out so as to make a kind of lattice. Several examples of this kind of shoe are exhibited at the British Museum, and we give an illustration of one of these, which is in a very fair state of preservation. (See Figure 66.) [Illustration: FIG. 64.--A modern boot decorated with perforations made in the leather.] [Illustration: FIG. 65.--An ornamented Roman shoe, of two thicknesses.] [Illustration: FIG. 66.--A Roman shoe of open-work leather.] It seems very probable that the ornamentation on our modern shoes is a survival of the open work which was in favour with the Romans, especially as even then the apertures did not always expose the foot. In pre-Roman times in this country there were perforations in some of the shoes which were useful rather than ornamental, and one type (of which a specimen figured by Fairholt is preserved by the Royal Irish Academy) has survived until recently, if it is not to be found to-day, in Scotland and Ireland. This shoe was made of raw hide (see Figure 67), and the holes, it is said, were intended to allow the water to pass through when the wearer was crossing morasses. An examination of the figure will, however, show that the holes are really slits, and it would appear that however useful they may have proved in the way described, they were originally made for quite a different reason. [Illustration: FIG. 67.--A hide shoe of pre-Roman type from Ireland (after Fairholt).] The most primitive kind of shoe would doubtless be a piece of hide placed under the foot and brought up over the toes and round the heel. It would make a rather unprepossessing bundle, and there would be awkward puckers where the hide was gathered up. If the superfluous material at the toe were cut away, we should have a slit in every case where there had previously been a fold. This state of affairs is exactly what is to be seen in the Irish shoe, where the strips of leather that are left are held in place by a thong. In an ingenious way, apparently with the help of the same lace, the difficulty of securing a fit at the heel has also been got over. The result is a very neat shoe indeed, though in reality it is only the original flat piece of hide. [Illustration: FIG. 68.--The original top boot with the upper part temporarily turned down.]