is no sudden leap from servitude to liberty-that it is to institutions, not to men, that they must look for reforms that last beyond the hour-that their own passions are the real despots they should subdue, their own reason the true regenerator of abuses. With a calm and noble people, the individual ambition of a citizen can never effect evil. To be impatient of chains is not to be worthy of freedom-to massacre a magistrate is not to ameliorate the laws.

NOTES ON DIET.

WHY is it that man is the only cooking animal? Is it that he may have a greater range of food, and consequently a greater chance of a ready supply in every situation and every diversity of climate? Yet many animals, as the common pig, are as truly omnivorous as man. The pig eats everything, thrives on almost all kinds of food, and gets fat on roots, nuts, and grains, without any of the aids of cookery. Carnivorous animals attain the highest muscular power on raw flesh, and herbivorous and graminivorous tribes assume their full forms on raw vegetables. It is true, savages use little of the arts of cookery, and still they have a perfect enough animal frame, yet, on an average, they are inferior in muscular power to civilised man, and in mental vigour greatly deficient. Is it the higher mental organisation of man, then, that has rendered cookery necessary to him ? We suspect it is. Though we are ignorant of the nature of the connection of mind with organised matter, yet experience clearly demonstrates that mental action reduces and weakens the vital apparatus just as much as animal or muscular. Not only does the act of thinking exhaust the system, but the emotions and passions of the mind are continually drawing upon the animal vigour. May not food, then, rendered more stimulacing and refined by the art of cookery, be essential to the full mental development, nay, even necessary for its most ordinary manifestations? Hence, too, perhaps arises that propensity for narcotics and alcoholic stimulants common to most nations, but so apt to be abused and perverted. It is well known that carnivorous birds and quadrupeds can by habit be brought to live on an entire vegetable diet, but we have never heard of any trial having been made of feeding a graminivorous animal on an entirely animal diet; and yet vegetable feeding animals are extremely fond of flesh, or indeed any animal matter, when they can procure it. This is the case with cows and horses in a state of domestication, and with many graminivorous birds. A singular perversity of appetite not unfrequently incites rabbits and pigs to devour their young litters immediately after birth. This is especially the case with the first brood of the rabbit.

Some interesting experiments have lately been made by Dr D. Thomson on the food of cows, by which it appears that oil-cake, malt, and such concentrated substances, are not so nutritious or productive of milk as common hay, grass, or turnips. This agrees with similar experiments on human beings, where highly concentrated food, such as jellies, sago, sugar, or rich soups, are found not so suitable for digestion, or for the varied purposes of life, as plain flesh, or plainly cooked flour, meal, or that dish of nature's own compounding, milk. The food is of a compound nature, one part of it contributing to the nourishment and growth of the body, and consisting of albumen, the other Contributing to the animal heat through the medium of respiration, and consisting of carbonaceous matter, as fat, els, sugar, starch. Animals require different proportions of these ingredients in their food according to age, the degree of exercise taken, and to climate. Sedentary persons, who do not exercise their muscular powers much, require less food, and that food of a less nutritious nature, than those who pursue a life of great activity. In warm climates, as the expenditure of animal heat is moderated, fat meat and oily substances are less requisite than in cold esantries, where a large supply of animal fat is absolutely Decessary to keep up that internal heat which is constantly required to resist the cold of the elements. Animal food

contains the largest proportion of albuminous nitrogenised matter in the smallest space, but the mealy vegetable matters, especially the meal of grain plants, are also very nutritious. Thus the meal of the bean contains twenty-five per cent. of nitrogenised matter, linseedmeal twenty-three per cent., Scotch oatmeal fifteen per cent., Essex flour ten to eleven per cent. Sago, tapioca, prepared farina, and such substances, contain so low a proportion as two to three per cent., and though in many instances recommended as the food of delicate children, are in reality the weakest and most flatulent articles of diet on which they could be fed. In thus speculating on the nature of food, as analysed by the chemist, it must be borne in mind, however, that all food is taken into the stomach mixed with a large proportion of watery fluids, so that quantity often makes up for the actual amount per cent. of the really nutritious ingredients. Thus the common potato contains about onetwelfth part of the solid nutritious matter contained in beanmeal, and about a sixth part of that of common wheat flour, yet the bulk of potatoes taken renders them a sufficiently nutritious meal.

Grape Cure.-The Russian physicians have adopted a mode of regimen which they call the cure de raisin. It is practised in the southern parts of that empire and the grape countries there, and the class of patients are those nervous and debilitated ennuyes of the higher ranks that have become diseased from luxurious living. A lady of rank leaves her bed of down and cushioned canopy and goes to the country. She there turns a poor family out of their habitation (meantime making this family an ample recompense), and becomes the tenant of a filthy hut. This is part of the cure, to forego all luxury, to sleep in the peasant's crib, to sit upon his bench, and to avoid anything in the shape of comfort. The grape alone is taken as food, the grape for drink; a small quantity of dry bread is perhaps allowed. This is continued for the space of three weeks, and it is no wonder, if all circumstances are taken into consideration, that a cure is effected. People of the highest rank have subjected themselves to such discipline, and have all faith in its results. It is homoeopathy and hydropathy in another shape; or it is, more properly speaking, a simple return to the system of nature and common sense.

Wilson, the American ornithologist, while pursuing his researches among the pestilent marshes along the banks of the Mississippi, was seized with fever and diarrhoea, and he relates that he cured himself by living on wild strawberries. Linnæus relates a cure which he also effected, while wandering over Lapland, by confining himself entirely to a species of wild mountain-berry, produced in that lonely region in great abundance.

The cuttlefish, which is nearly as abundant in the Ægean Sea as the herring in our friths, as it formed a savoury dish to the ancient Greeks, so is it no less sought after by the modern inhabitants of that country. Professor E. Forbes says-One of the most striking spectacles at night on the shores of the Ægean is to see the numerous torches glaring along the sands and reflected by the still and clear sea, borne by poor fishermen, paddling as silently as possible over the rocky shallows in search of the cuttlefish, which, when seen lying beneath the waters in wait for its prey, they dexterously spear ere the creature has time to dart with the rapidity of an arrow from the weapon about to transfix its soft body.' The heaps of the cuttlefish-bone piled up beside the houses of the natives indicate the numbers which are thus captured and eaten. When well beaten to render them soft, then cut into slices and stewed in a savoury sauce, they form a very palatable dish; so that a modern Lydian dinner, where stewed cuttlefish forms the first course, and roasted porcupine the second, might well deserve the notice even of the epicure.

The nest of the sea-swallow is deemed a great luxury by the Chinese. Those of the best quality sell for their weight in silver, or five guineas and a half per pound, and some of very superior quality even for their weight in gold. They are composed of a nutritious jelly, the real composition of which is not very well known. The most intelligent of

the natives of the islands where the nests are found say that the substance is procured from the juice of a submarine plant called agar-agar, mixed with a peculiar exudation from the rocky caverns on the sea-shore; and it is added that the bird in building time constantly inserts its sharp bill into the pulp of certain delicate fruits, and thence extracts that exquisite material which imparts so fine a flavour to the matter of the nest. On the coast of Java there is a singular cavern much frequented by these sea-swallows, in the interior of which they build their nests, arranged in close rows from the entrance far into the interior. This cavern can only be entered from above, through a narrow passage, and by a ratan ladder. In this way the collectors descend, and with imminent peril creep along the sides of the cavern and collect the nests. This they do before the eggs are deposited; and though every year great quantities of the nests are thus abstracted, the birds still continue to rebuild them. The nests are prized according to their transparency and freedom from all extraneous matters. The finest flavoured are those found in the inmost and darkest recesses of the moist cavern-those exposed to the light and dry air being least prized.

There are from twenty to thirty different kinds of holothuria or sea-slug which are found in the eastern seas, and which are eagerly sought after by the Chinese for converting into soups and ragouts. The fishing for and curing of these animals is now a principal source of wealth in the once famous Spice Islands of the Dutch, and in the newlyestablished British colony of Port Essington, on the northern shores of Australia. The same kind of animals swarm in great abundance in the sandy bays of this peninsula. The animal is called by the Chinese trepang, and in size and appearance it resembles a prickly cucumber, except that the colour is a whitish brown. According to Mr Earel, is found in all the sheltered harbours or bays, where it gropes about the bottom and feeds upon weeds and mollusca. It is taken at low water upon the shoals or mudbanks, over which the fishermen wade knee-deep in water, dragging their boats after them, and when the feet come in contact with a slug, it is picked up and thrown into the boat. The fishermen occasionally search in deeper water, when they avail themselves of the services of the natives, who are expert divers; or if they cannot obtain such assistance, they prick for them with barbed iron darts, provided with long bamboo handles. The process of curing is very simple. The slug, on being taken from the boat, is simmered over a fire in an iron cauldron for about half an hour, after which it is thrown out upon the ground, and the operation of opening commences, this being effected by a longitudinal slit along the back with a sharp knife. It is then again placed in the cauldron, and boiled in salt water, with which a quantity of the bark of the mangrove has been mixed, for about three hours, when the outer skin will begin to peel off. It is now sufficiently boiled; and after the water has been drained off, the slugs are arranged in the drying-houses upon frames of split bamboo, spread out immediately under the roof. Each slug is carefully placed with the part that has been cut open facing downwards, and a fire is made underneath, the smoke of which soon dries the trepang sufficiently to permit its being packed in baskets or bags for exporta

tion.

At my command

Scour sea and land,
Till the trembling nations die.
When the crimson rain
Of the battle-plain

Falls fast on helm and shield,
I guide each dart

To my victim's heart,

And exult 'mid the din of the field;

When the battle-tide
Rolls deep and wide

I spread my banquet-hall,
And bird and beast,
To the carrion feast,
Come, rejoicing, at my call.
When the downtrod slave
On land or wave,
Weeps wildly in his pains,
With my bony hands
I break his bands,
And I cast away his chains.
The despot may prate

Of his power and state,
But I laugh at his boasted pride;
He may trample and scorn
The bondsman at moru,

But at night he shall sleep by his side.
When hunger, and care,

And fierce despair,

Haunt the poor man in hovel and den,
From his pillow of clay

I bear him away,

To know never want again.

I glide round the walls
Of the palace-halls,

When they echo with mirth's gay tone,
And my grasp I fling

Round the haughty king,

And I hurl him from his throne.

Ere the new-born child
Hath look'd and smiled
On the gladsome light of day,

To the couch of its sleep
Unseen I creep,
And snatch its soul away.

I spare not the son
Of the widow'd one,

Nor the fair in her blooming time;
Unrelenting I slay

The mournful and gay,

And the strong in his manhood's prime

And hand in hand,

O'er sea and land,

By my daughter, the grave, I tread ;
And my kingship shall last
Till the angel's blast

Change the living, and waken the dead.

KAPLAN,

A CIRCASSIAN TALE.

R. P. S.

THERE are few regions in the world where the temperate in all things so admirably blend as in the region of the Caucasus. The seasons maintain an almost mean temperature through their whole gradations. Summer softens to autumn, autumn fades away into a sort of tearful cool winter, winter revives to a sweet and vivifying spring, and spring blends again into summer, so gently and imperceptibly, that the cycle of the year goes on in a system of rotatory uniformity, like the healthy advancement and decay of the physical systems of the men who pass their temperate lives among its flowery valleys or green sloping hills. Man is beautiful here, and true to the law of sympathies; all things of beauty are formed to delight his senses. The stunted juniper and gloomy fir are meet companions for the stunted darkened Laplander. Flowers of beauty, and birds of Paradise, and tall green spreading

trees, would not live in his clime, nor would their beauty delight his sensual mind; but the Circassian is chief of men by nature, and, true to her love of harmony, nature has lavished her chief treasures of beauty upon the land that is truly meet for the home of the good, and true, and beautiful. Where the arrangements of God in nature have not been disturbed by that social rebel man, how beautiful and perfect they are! Where he, in his irresponsible egotism, has come to disturb those arrangements, alas, how incongruous and antagonistic do man's relations to his little world around him become! Smoking desolation and sterile ruin ill consort with dewy showers and genial sunbeams; and swords, and spears, and screams, and painful wounds, and murder, seem strange sights and sounds amid scenes that invite the songs of birds, the bleat of sheep, the low of cattle, and the cheerful cries of the stil-tillers, with the sound of the shepherd's lute and the milk-maiden's song. These last are the harmonies of life and melody that the Caucasian region and climate demand; and those who were born and reared in that lovely country are willing that peace should make it so; but the imorant, superstitious, bloodthirsty czar, who sits upon the throne of Russia, and whose cupidity is equal even to his cruelty, like a demon of.discord, has sent disorganisation and desolation into the Caucasus that he may call it his own, even though it should become as cold and sterile as his heart, and a land of nothing but graves.

In 18 there stood at Sujuk Kaleh a Russian fort. This fort was built of stone and lime, was encircled by a strong stockade towards the north, and laved by the vasers of the Black Sea on the south. Sujuk Kaleh had originally been a Turkish bazaar; but Russian influence had destroyed the trade, left the mart a ruin, and had raised upon the foundations of its stores, where cloths of wool Were wont to be sold, stones where ugly black cannon and tar munitions lay, as if impatient to destroy human life. The grave men who used to sit cross legged, with chebouks in their mouths, and sell carpets to the Circassian princes or pehes for their divans, woollen cloths to the nobles or works for tunics and gala-dresses for their wives and daughters, or salt and oil to the serfs or pshilts who came from the valleys to the north of Psadug because their masters would have no dealings with the Muscovs on the Kuban, were gone now, and lazy, sleepy, dirty, whiskered sollers mounted guard upon certain points of the garrison Leking to the north, or loitered about its stone-paved pare and gazed towards the sea. The little harbour, ang whose busy pier the open feluccas of the Moslem Eerchants used to lie, was unvisited now save by the transports of Russia, and the broken dilapidated pier was to konger trodden by the stately boatmen of Anapa and Sukwa, its crumbling footway being seldom walked save perhaps by those wretched soldiers, who, weary of the tyranny of their commanders, and frightened from desertion by their officers' tales of Circassian cruelty, sped along at night to cast themselves into the Black Sea for the rest and liberty of death. One of the popular delusions, which used to exercise a chilling enervating influence over our young faculties, was that which attached to the upas tree. This vegetable vampire, we believed, breathed decay and desolation to every plant within a large circumference of where it stood. The very air grew fevered that dared to sigh through its branches; men sickened and died who laid them down to rest beneath its sombre deadly shade. Neither grass, nor wer, nor shrub, nor bird, nor beast dared to enter the zion which this poisonous plant had usurped to itself. It was a centre of counteraction to all the life-bringing sweets of air, and to all the life-sustaining properties of the soil; it usurped the theatre of human life, and transfrued the green mead into the arid desert. This was a fable which first floated in the mind of some dreamy idealist, and then was ejaculated as a prophetic metaphor which cefully finds a parallel in a Russian fort. All was drary and desolate round that centre of cruel oppression and spoliation; and as the open country round Sujuk KaSen had frequently been the theatre of battle, it was as ate as the cannon of the fort could render it.

From one of the bastions of the fort several soldiers, in the uniform of the Russian chasseurs, lay and looked towards the hills of Ozerek, which, rising in successive ridges, receded far into the distant horizon. The war between the hill tribes and the soldiers of Russia was being prosecuted with great vigour just now, and scouts were coming and going to and from the fort bearing news of gatherings in the valleys, and proceeding to warn the several leaders of the forts forming the cordon between Anapa and Sujuk Kaleh to be on the alert. The soldiers seemed to look with more than their usual attention towards the mountains and to commune with each other more eagerly than was their wont, as they lay and gazed from the battlements.

Ah, Eric, they say that he is taller than Machel Hoff, the tanner of Smolensk,' said a young soldier, as he turned to a companion, and that he is as fierce as Machel's wolfdog.'

'Well, that he is as tall as Machel I doubt not, but that Machel's Brand is as fierce as he I will not believe. Ragnor Oloff, who lost an arm last spring by the sword of this Kaplan, told me that his eyes are as red as the nightlights of the hospital, and that his hirsute face is disfigured with tusks like boars. I wish he was in Siberia rather than in these valleys.'

'Does he come from the valleys on the Kuban, Eric?' said a young man, modestly, as he approached the talkers and joined the conversation.

'I know nothing of where he's from, Twenty-three,' said the Russian, sulkily. It doesn't do to tell thee of such a rebel, who hast thyself rebel blood in thee.'

The youth without a name turned in silence, and slowly leaving the bastion walked musingly to the courtyard, as a tall rawboned porutshik entered into the fort, and calling him to him by his number, threw the reins of his horse towards him as he dismounted, and muttering some imperious mandates, proceeded towards the quarters of the commandant.

6

'Hillo, Demdoff, whither so fast?' cried a young subaltern, as he thrust his head through the broken window of what was termed the smoking-room. What news?' Ah, Rigovitch!' drawled the equestrian, as he expectorated mouthful of tobacco juice, and curled his catlike moustache, there will be mounting and dismounting soon, I tell you. I hear that Kaplan has come to Ozerek.' When did he come?' inquired the young officer. 'I do not know, but report goes that he has left Fort Nefil a ruin, and has come with five hundred horsemen at his back to raze Sujuk Kaleh.'

'Ha, ha! his corps would need to be Polish engineers, with five thousand mattocks, then,' cried Rigovitch, laughing. I suppose he'll make you messenger when he means to visit us.'

'Let me tell thee, Rigovitch,' said Demdoff, coming close to his comrade and speaking lowly, it is said that that nameless chasseur who holds my horse is as much a Russian as he is a Circassian, and he knows more of fort building than he gets credit for; but he's a fierce foe and a dashing leader, that I know,' continued Demdoff, in a low tone; and now for General Koff, he too must know that the hornets of the north are gathering in the valleys, and that Kaplan has come.'

At the last sentence, uttered with unusual emphasis, Rigovitch drew in his head as if he had been stung by a wasp, and in an instant the bevy of Russian officers, who had been smoking beside him and listening, were engaged in a tumultuous and noisy discussion about sieges, marches, and night attacks, and all the probabilities and contingencies likely to follow the coming of this Kaplan to Ozerek.

Kaplan is come!' muttered the man who held the brown horse of Demdoff. Ah, has he come?' and he raised his head from its abject recumbent position and glanced towards the hills with an eye that gleamed like an eagle's. It was but for a moment, however, for, looking rapidly and uneasily around him, he immediately settled down into his former condition of apathetic listlessness, and looked stupidly at the ground.