In this country the pitch pine (πίτυς) was rare, but it abounded in Elis. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iii. 94. Footnote 1036: Id. v. 4. 6. Footnote 1037: Id. v. 3. 5-7. 4-4, seq. Footnote 1038: Athen. ix. 67. Footnote 1039: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 10. 1, seq. Footnote 1040: Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iii. 8. 4. v. 7. 7. Footnote 1041: Id. v. 6. 1. ----- The box, the ilex, and the lotos, they employed for door-pivots, which were seasoned by being immersed in cow-dung.[1042] ----- Footnote 1042: Id. v. 5. 4-6. ----- Cart and wheel wrights,[1043] necessarily pretty numerous, made use in their trade of the following kinds of wood,—the scarlet oak,[1044] in countries not abounding with ilex, as Laconia and Elis, for carts, ploughs, and other rustic implements; the oxya, the fir, and the elm, for chariot-bodies;[1045] the ilex, the box, the ash, and the mast-bearing beech, for axletrees. The wood of all glutinous trees is naturally flexible, but more especially that of the mulberry and the wild fig, for which reason these, together with the platane, and the poplar, were used for making the bended rims of chariot-seats, and the circles of wheels.[1046] For spokes, the wood of the cornel tree was preferred, and that of the box, the yew, the maple, and the carpinus—hedge-beech, or hornbeam—for the yokes of oxen. In old times the bodies of carts were often formed of basket-work. It may be remarked by the way, that the Greeks understood the use of the drag-wheel.[1047] ----- Footnote 1043: Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 462. Poll. i. 253. Footnote 1044: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 16. 3. Footnote 1045: Id. iii. 10. 1. Footnote 1046: Id. v. 6. 2. Footnote 1047: Athen. iii. 55. ----- It has long been made a question among the learned[1048] whether the ancients were or were not acquainted with the saddle, properly so called. It may now be determined in the affirmative, since, besides the several testimonies of classical writers, which are much too clear to be set aside, we find in several Herculanean pictures exact representations of saddles, both on horses and asses, with girths and cruppers exactly as in modern times.[1049] It is evident, too, that they are constructed upon wooden frames, to which Herodotus may possibly allude where he speaks of saddles made of tanned human skins.[1050] Packsaddles for sumpter-asses are of constant occurrence in history; and that they were tolerably thick may be inferred from the fact, that numbers of daggers were concealed in them by Aratos in his attempt upon Argos.[1051] I shall here mention, also, by the way, and without entering into any discussion, that horses and asses were occasionally shod by the ancients,[1052] though the practice was doubtless not universal. ----- Footnote 1048: Beckmann decides for the negative, i. 247. Footnote 1049: Antich. di Ercol. t. ii. tav. 12, p. 79. t. iii. pp. 227. 231. Footnote 1050: Herod. iv. 64. Footnote 1051: