better tempered than their haughty

masters.

We found the Turkman women very frank and chatty, mingling freely in the conversation out of doors, though the girls seldom entered the men's apartments. Their figures are elegant, their features regular, and complexions fair as that of Europeans. The elderly females, however, who are more exposed to glare and sunshine, have the appearance of gypsies, and the very old ones are perfect witches and hags. Their morals are chaste, as the Ryhanlu law inflicts death, by the hands of father or brother, on any unhappy damsel who has submitted to be kissed. Several instances are on record where this demoniacal law has been enforced. The Ryhanlu ladies dress in the style of the Syrian women their head-dress is adorned with strings of Venetian sequins, gathered together, probably, in the days when Venice had upwards of forty wealthy merchants established at Aleppo, in the palmy days when the commerce of Ind passed through that city. They are very laborious and industrious, besides being very skilful. In addition to housekeeping, which in itself, with churning and baking, is no sinecure, they work the tent-coverings of black goat-hair, and weave woollen carpets and rugs, inferior only to those of Persia. The looms they use are of primitive simplicity, and they use no shuttle, passing the wool with their hands, which renders the manufacture a tardy one. Every daughter eligible to marriage has worked one of these carpets of more than ordinary beauty and texture, which she carefully treasures up against the bridal-day. These people have made great progress in the art of dyeing, and their colours are exceedingly brilliant. The indigo and cochineal, which gives the requisite blue and red dyes, they purchase at Aleppo; but the ingredients of all others, especially a most superb green, are obtained from herbs, which they gather in the mountains of Armenia. The green itself would prove a fortune to such an enterprising gentleman as Mr Perkins, of purple notoriety; but, unfortunately, the dyeing process is

kept as a national secret by the Ryhanlu, and descends as an heirloom from family to family. The horsemen of the tribe wear wide loose trousers of blue cloth, and the regular Turkish fez; the wealthier sport turbans of flowered stuffs, and even valuable Persian shawls. They are the most indolent of the indolent when at home, their sole pastime being comprised in feeding their horses and camels at sunset, and lounging the remainder of the day upon their divans, smoking and drinking coffee, visiting each other, and talking about the weather or the prospects of sport. We could hardly reconcile these people as being the same with those noisy, screaming, litigious camel-drivers, who, the very morning of our first starting on this cruise, danced about with huge shillelahs in their hands, engaged in deadly encounter with an opposition caravan, who wanted to appropriate to themselves the lightest bales. Were the young men at all active or enterprising, they could soon convert the whole plain into one vast garden, a mine of untold wealth.

In our wanderings amongst this people we could not fail to remark that they lived together in suspicion of each other, and were always provided against an emergency. In fact, they measured other people's worth and integrity by their own distorted standard. The Ryhanlu never leaves his tent, even for ever so short a ride, without being armed to the teeth. Yet, unlike other nomade tribes, they are very neglectful of their firearms, suffering them to rust, and then expressing surprise and discontentment at their pieces missing fire. They have no gunsmiths nor artisans of any description amongst them; and, happy people, no lawyers. As a body they are very illiterate, and possess no books; and, though professing Islamism, they confine themselves to the outward signs and prostrations, being utterly ignorant of the text of the Koran, or any form of prayer. They marry very young, and grow old prematurely; yet many of them reach a goodly old age, when they have the appearance of being thoroughly sun-dried and wind-shrivel

led, and look not unlike a thoroughlysmoked bloater. When the sons attain a marriageable age, the father presents them with a couple of camels and a horse; and when the father dies, the property is equally divided amongst the sons and daughters. They bury their dead anywhere and everywhere, as convenience best suits.

Such is a brief account of these Ryhanlu Turkmans, who have permanent homes, from a district seven hours distant to the north-west of Aleppo, to the extent before alluded to. Their best known villages are Termeneda and Dana, both on the high-road to Aleppo from the seacoast. Those least known are Tellade, Houry, Tellekberac, and Bab. Most of the country they stretch themselves over can boast of an excellent soil; and on every hill-top, more or less, are to be encountered the ruins of villages and towns, marvellous in structure, many of which must have been supplied with water from aqueducts long since demolished. Some of the beams were thirty feet long,

and they were all cut out of solid stone; many had the appearance of unfinished buildings; none had inscriptions of any kind; and all had braved centuries of time-hurricanes and convulsions of the earth. We returned to our original starting-point by way of Tarsus and Adana, and over the plains of Issus. Here were several Ryhanlu encampments, and we purchased some carpets of the women, which were very beautifully interwoven with peacock-tail feathers, and which we thought absurdly cheap. Keeping along the western bank of the Gihoon river, we reached the village of Ayas, near the north-east extremity of the Gulf of Scanderoon, just in time to witness some capital sport amongst the crew of a British steam-frigate, who had come over in boats from Alexandretta for the express purpose of catching turtle, with which these lagoons swarm. That evening we bade adieu to our old guide, who had business to transact at Adana, and crossed over to the other side in the man-of-war's boats.

SIR,-In the pages of Maga for March 1858, and subsequently in the Physiology of Common Life, Liebig's celebrated Theory of Food was examined at some length. The conclusion there arrived at was, that the theory is erroneous in Method, and erroneous in its applications: it is neither to be justified by philosophy, nor by experience; but is simply a brilliant hypothesis, very ingenious and very captivating, by which chemistry attempts to explain a physiological problem.

That an attack on a generally accepted theory would provoke counter attacks from some of its advocates, was, of course, foreseen. Had it been received in silence, I should have been disappointed. As the question is one of some scientific interest, perhaps you will permit me to examine briefly the arguments, pro and con. I have not the slightest wish to reply to any observations that affect me personally; such things naturally and silently right themselves; but the discussion of arguments on scientific grounds ought not to be shunned.

There are three eminent critics who challenge attention, as defenders of Liebig's theory, and these are-1st, Dr Daubeny, of Oxford, who in that University delivered a lecture on "Animal Nutrition, with reference to remarks on that subject contained in Lewes's Physiology of Common Life; 2d, Prof. Bischoff, the distinguished embryologist, who reviewed the German translation of the Physiology; and, 3d, A writer in our leading medical organ, ‡ whom, for brev

ity, I shall style "the Reviewer.” Dr Daubeny treats his antagonist with that perfect courtesy which ought to reign in all controversy; Bischoff is angry for his friend and master, Liebig; and the Reviewer is angry for some one else. §

The objections I raised were against the radical vice of philosophic Method, which attempts to solve physiological problems by chemistry alone. A large part is of course to be assigned to chemistry, which must furnish indispensable aid; but, on a priori grounds, I argued that chemistry cannot successfully cope with truly vital questions; and, on a posteriori grounds, it was shown that no success has yet followed the immense labours of chemists in this direction, not one single practical result for the feeding of animals having been achieved. To meet these objections, therefore, my critics would have to show that success is possible, and that it has been attained in such measure as to warrant the continuance of the Method.

Bischoff disposes of all that has been urged on these heads, by scornfully calling me 'a vitalist of the old school." But this proves the extreme carelessness with which he has read the work he criticises, since not only is that work in unequivocal antagonism to the vitalist doctrine, but contains a cautionary disclaimer against this misinterpretation, placed as a note to the very passage which condemns the chemical method. After a mistake so glaring, Bischoff finds no difficulty in the following

there are processes dependent on complicated and special conditions which constitute vital phenomena, and which, because they are complicated and special, and unlike the simpler phenomena exhibited in the inorganic world, cannot be deduced from the laws of inorganic phenomena. My protest was against our accepting the plausible hypotheses deduced from the laws of chemical action out of the organism; these hypotheses are not only fallacious guides in practice, but are injurious because they satisfy the intellectual craving for an explanation, and thus prevent the true explanation being sought. "It is a fact," I said, "that physiology is at present in too incomplete a condition to answer the chief question raised respecting Food; and this fact it was desirable to bring into the clear light of evidence; for on all accounts it is infinitely better that we should understand our ignorance, than that we should continue believing in hypotheses which enlighten none of the obscurities gathering round the question. It is in vain that we impatiently turn our eyes away; the darkness never disappears merely because we cease to look at it."

On this general question of Method the Reviewer says nothing. Let me therefore now proceed to examine the defence set up for Liebig's theory of food, which is the more special topic under discussion. The theory propounded by Liebig may be thus briefly stated: Animals require food for two purposes, to build up the fabric, and keep up the temperature of their bodies. The first, called plastic, or tissue-making food, is furnished only by certain organic substances which contain nitrogen as one of their elements. The second, called respiratory, or heat-making, is furnished by certain organic substances destitute of nitrogen. In other words, nitrogenous substances are tissue-making, non-nitrogenous substances are heatmaking. Albuminous substances are those which form the animal fabric, and bestow on it its vital properties. Carbonaceous substances-fats, oils, starch, sugar, alcohol, &c.-are, on the contrary, quite incapable of enter

ing into the composition of the tissues; they, are, however, of great use in the organism, being "burned" there by the oxygen taken in during respiration, and thus furnishing the heat required. Besides these nitrogenous and carbonaceous substances, there are several inorganic substances salts, iron, water, &c.—which must be regarded as accessories for the physical conditions of the organism.

Against this theory a long list of objections was advanced. To the proposition that nitrogenous substances are plastic, and non-nitrogenous heat-making, I opposed the admitted facts that nitrogenous substances are heat-making as well as plastic, and that the non-nitrogenous are plastic as well as heat-making; consequently the distinction between the two, as one of kind, falls to the ground: both substances are nutritive, and not the former only, as Liebig asserts. Bischoff and the Reviewer attempt to get rid of this objection by saying that Liebig is aware of the fact that albuminous substances are also heat-making. This is true; but his theory disregards it, and most explicitly denies that the non-nitrogenous substances are plastic, or have any claim to be ranked as nutritive in the proper sense.

"The division of food," I said, "into nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous, is a chemical division to which no objection need be made, for it expresses a

chemical fact. But when the fact that albuminous substances form a necessary

proportion of organised tissues, is made the ground for specially distinguishing them as plastic; and when the presence of nitrogen in these substances is made the ground for specially distinguishing nitrogen as the plastic element, the percentage of which is to afford the standard of nutritive value, we see a striking example of chemical reasonings applied to physiology, which a confrontation with nature suffices to upset. For observe: while it is true that albumen is the foundation, the starting point of the whole series of peculiar tissues which are the seat of vital actions' (Liebig)—while it is true that the peculiar characteristic of organised tissues is that they contain albuminous substances as necessary ingredients; not less is it true that the other substances, thus arbitrarily ex