Horses should not be fed, at least in hostile country, in the neighbourhood of villages or on the main road, but always in a safe place, and a proportion of them only at a time. In friendly country they may best be fed in the larger villages, which the hostile patrols will avoid, but should not halt on the main road. When the locality is reached where a meeting with hostile detachments may be expected, the patrol should advance in _bonds successifs_. It must, unfortunately, be admitted that such methods appear to be quite foreign to most patrol leaders; at all events, they are seldom applied in manoeuvres. Most of them ride forward with praiseworthy speed along the road until they collide with the enemy; then, indeed, they begin to observe him, without asking themselves whether in war the result of such tactics would not have already compromised their chances of success. For if they are once discovered by the enemy they may count on being relentlessly hunted and pursued, so that there will no longer be, in most cases, any further possibility of deliberate observation. Very different indeed are the circumstances when, from a well-chosen point of view, a patrol is successful in detecting the enemy before coming into immediate collision with him. The patrol can then order the whole of its conduct according to its knowledge of the enemy before it is discovered, and has a very much greater prospect of attaining good results. We must lay down here, once and for all, that the distant observation with the glass is by far the most important; it affords the best survey over the general conditions, and a better possibility of sending back a report safely and quickly. It is just in this method of observation that, in consequence of our peace conditions, patrols are generally so badly trained. Again and again they fall into the error of approaching too close to the enemy and, in order to see as much of him as possible, let him march past them. They are then compelled to send in their reports from places which lie behind the belt of the hostile service of security. The despatch-riders have then to ride from the rear through the hostile advance-guard, outposts, and patrol system.