In this journey the herds were allowed to range over the best grass that could be found, but were guarded both night and day with great care, whereas, if they had been corraled or picketed at night, I dare say they would have lost flesh.[3] [3] Some curious and interesting experiments are said to have been recently made at the veterinary school at Alfort, near Paris, by order of the minister of war, to ascertain the powers of endurance of horses. It appears that a horse will live on water alone five-and-twenty days; seventeen days without eating or drinking; only five days if fed and unwatered; ten days if fed and insufficiently watered. A horse kept without water for three days drank one hundred and four pounds of water in three minutes. It was found that a horse taken immediately after "feed," and kept in the active exercise of the "squadron school," completely digested its "feed" in three hours; in the same time in the "conscript's school" its food was two thirds digested; and if kept perfectly quiet in the stable, its digestion was scarcely commenced in three hours. SADDLES. Great diversity of opinion exists regarding the best equipment for horses, and the long-mooted question is as yet very far from being definitely settled. I do not regard the opinions of Europeans as having a more direct bearing upon this question, or as tending to establish any more definite and positive conclusions regarding it than have been developed by the experience of our own border citizens, the major part of whose lives has been spent in the saddle; yet I am confident that the following brief description of the horse equipments used in different parts of Europe, the substance of which I have extracted from Captain M'Clellan's interesting report, will be read with interest and instruction. The saddle used by the African chasseurs consists of a plain wooden tree, with a pad upon the top, but without skirts, and is somewhat similar to our own military saddle, but lower in the pommel and cantle. The girth and surcingle are of leather, with an ordinary woolen saddle-blanket. Their bridle has a single head-stall, with the Spanish bit buckled to it.