Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Short Treatise on Boots and Shoes, Ancient and Modern S far back as we can trace the early history of man, under civilized conditions of life, we find that shoes of some kind have been worn. At first they were very crude and simple, being noth ing more than soles fastened to the foot by means of thongs or straps, which passed between the toes and around the ankle, like Figs. 3. Shoes of this de scription were called sandals, and were worn by the an cient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. It has been discovered, by means of paintings on the walls of Thebes, that shoemaking formed a distinct and quite lucrative trade away back in the reign of Thoth mes III., some fifteen hundred years 'before Christ, so that followers of the awl and last can truthfully boast of the great antiquity of their profession. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.