“It appears that the use of the shelty, which is seldom more than from nine to eleven hands high, is principally confined to the carrying home of peat; yet, in the transportation of other kinds of light burdens, his back is still surmounted with a wooden saddle. When hay or any light bulky substance is to be carried, _maiseys_ are used, which are made of ropes prepared from _floss_ or rushes, these being reticulated in meshes of some inches in width. A net of this kind is passed round the horse, so as to secure the hay or other light substance that rests upon the boards of the klibbar. This ancient saddle is also found of use when the shelty is required by the female rider to bear her to the parish kirk; she then throws over his back a native coarse manufacture of the country, woven into the shape of a saddle-cloth, and when upon this covering the klibbar is fixed, its projecting pieces of wood which the female holds by, form it into a kind of sidesaddle.”[41] Till recent times, long after the ridden shelties had given place to the road-using gig, ponies were almost universally employed as carriers of peat. Cowie writes in 1874: “The peats are now dry, and are either built into a stack on the hill, thence to be gradually removed in _cassies_ during the year, or are immediately conveyed home on the backs of ponies, or in carts. The apparatus by which the pony is now literally turned into a beast of burden consists of a pair of straw panniers or _maysies_ attached to a wooden clibber. “This process of transport is termed leading the peats. Long strings of ponies engaged in this way may be seen in the month of July, under the command of _peat boys_.”[42] In the remoter Islands, ponies are still to be seen carrying creels of peats: but even this is now an extinct use in most districts. The pure-bred pony in the Islands has never been a draught animal to any great extent; and with the introduction of wheeled conveyances its employment has almost entirely disappeared. Another ancient use—in a sense a by-product—of the pony has also ceased. We find in the old laws of Shetland not merely prohibition to “ride, labour, or use any other man’s horse without liberty of the owner,” but also to “cut any other man’s horse—tail or main—under the pain of ten pounds.”[43] Thus did the horse-owning fisherman protect the material of his lines. But this use of the pony became extinct even before the changes had set in which are relegating line-fishing to the region of dead industries. [Illustration: CARRYING PEATS.] Yet, although the local employment of the pony is a thing of the past, its production remains a profitable part of Shetland farming.