Chapter II (7)

Upon the whole, life, at the Calabooza was not very disagreeable. The prisoners, now only nominally so, had little to complain of, except occasional short commons, arising not from unwillingness, but from disability, on the part of the kind-hearted natives, to satisfy the cravings of the hungry whalers, whose appetites were remarkable, especially that of lanky Doctor Long Ghost. The doctor was a stickler for quality as well as quantity; the memory of his claret and beccafico days still clung to him, like the scent of the roses to Tom Moore's broken gallipot: he was curious in condiments, and whilst devouring, grumbled at the unseasoned viands of Tahiti. Cayenne and Harvey abounded not in those latitudes, but pepper and salt were on board the Julia, and the doctor prevailed on Rope Yarn to bring him a supply. "This he placed in a small leather wallet, a monkey bag (so called by sailors) usually worn as a purse about the neck. 'In my poor opinion,' said Long Ghost, as he tucked the wallet out of sight, 'it behoves a stranger in Tahiti to have his knife in readiness, and his castor slung.'" And thus equipped, the doctor and his brethren in captivity rambled over the verdant slopes and through the cool groves of Tahiti, bathed in the mountain streams, and luxuriated in orange orchards, where "the trees formed a dense shade, spreading overhead a dark, rustling vault, groined with boughs, and studded here and there with the ripened spheres, like gilded balls." Then they had plenty of society; native visitors flocked to see them, and Doctor Johnson, a resident English physician, was constant in his attendance, knowing that the Consul must pay his bill. Three French priests also called upon them, one of whom proved to be no Frenchman, but a portly, handsome, good-humoured Irishman, well known and much disliked by the Polynesian protestant missionaries. A strong attempt was made by Guy and Wilson to get the men to do duty. A schooner was about to sail for Sydney, and they were threatened to be sent thither for trial. They still refused to hand rope or break biscuit on board the Julia. Long Ghost made some cutting remarks on the captain; and the sailors, who had been taken down to the Consul's office for examination, began to bully, and talked of carrying off Consul and Captain to bear them company in the Calabooza. The same ill success attended subsequent attempts, until Captain Guy was compelled to look out for another crew, which he obtained with difficulty, and by a considerable advance of hard dollars. And at last, "It was Sunday in Tahiti, and a glorious morning, when Captain Bob, waddling into the Calabooza, startled us by announcing, 'Ah, my boy--shippee you, harree--maky sail!' in other words, the Julia was off," and had taken her stores of old biscuit with her: so the next morning the inmates of the Calabooza were without rations. The Consul would supply none, and it was pretty evident that he rather desired the departure of the obstinate seamen from that part of the island. The whole of his proceedings with regard to them had served but to render him ridiculous, and he wished them out of his neighbourhood; but the ex-prisoners found themselves pretty comfortable, and preferred remaining. They were better off than they had for some time been, for Jermin--not such a bad fellow, after all--had sent them their chests ashore; and these, besides supplying them with sundry necessaries, gave them immense importance in Tahitian eyes. They had been kindly treated before, but now they were courted and flattered, like younger sons in marching regiments, who suddenly step into the family acres. The natives crowded round them, eager to swear eternal friendship, according to an old Polynesian custom, once universal in the islands, but that has fallen into considerable disuse, except when something is to be gained by its observance. A gentleman of the name of Kooloo fixed his affections upon Typee--or rather upon his goods and chattels; for when he had wheedled him out of a regatta shirt, and other small pieces of finery, he transferred his affections to a newly-arrived sailor, whose chest was better lined, and who bestowed on him a love-token, in the shape of a heavy pea-jacket. In this garment, closely buttoned up, Kooloo took morning promenades, with the tropical sun glaring down upon him. He frequently met his former friend, but passed him with a careless "How d'ye do?" which presently dwindled into a nod. "In one week's time," says poor Typee, "he gave me the cut direct, and lounged by without even nodding. He must have taken me for part of the landscape."

After a while the contents of the chests, and even the chests themselves--esteemed by the Tahitians most valuable pieces of furniture--were given or bartered away, and, as the Consul still refused them rations, the sailors knew not how to live. The natives helped them as much as they could, but their larders were scantily furnished, and they grew tired of feeding fifteen hungry idlers. So at last the latter made a morning call upon the Consul, who, being unwilling to withdraw, and equally so to press, charges which he knew would not be sustained, refused to have any thing to say to them. Thereupon some of the party, strong in principle and resolution, and seeing how grievous an annoyance their presence was to their enemy, Wilson, swore to abide near him and never to leave him. Others, less obstinate or more impatient of a change, resolved to decamp from the Calabooza. The first to depart were Typee and Long Ghost. They had received intelligence of a new plantation in Imeco, recently formed by foreigners, who wanted white labourers, and were expected at Papeetee to seek them. With these men they took service under the names of Peter and Paul, at wages of fifteen silver dollars a month; and, after an affecting separation from their shipmates--whose respectable character may be judged of by the fact, that one of them picked Long Ghost's pocket in the very act of embracing him,--they sailed away for Imeco, and arrived without accident in the valley of Martair, where the plantation was situate. The chapters recording their stay here are amongst the very best in the book, full of rich, quiet fun. Typee gives a capital description of his employers. They were two in number, both "whole-souled fellows; one was a tall robust Yankee, born in the backwoods of Maine, sallow, and with a long face; the other, a short little Cockney who had first clapped his eyes on the Monument." Zeke the Yankee, had christened his comrade "Shorty;" and Shorty looked up to him with respect, and yielded to him in most things. Both showed themselves well disposed towards their new labourers, whom they at once discovered to be superior to their station. And they soon found their society so agreeable, that they were willing to keep them to do little more than nominal work. As to making them efficient farm servants, they quickly gave up that idea. As a sailor, Typee had little fancy for husbandry; and the doctor found his long back terribly in his way when requested to dig potatoes and root up stumps, under a sun which, as Shorty said, "was hot enough to melt the nose hoff a brass monkey." Long Ghost very soon gave in; the extraction of a single tree-root settled him; he pleaded illness, and retired to his hammock, but was considerably vexed when he heard the Yankee propose a bullock hunting expedition, in which, as a sick man, he could not decently take part. This was only the prologue to his annoyances. Musquitoes, unknown in Tahiti, abound in Imeeo. They were brought there, according to a native tradition, by one Nathan Coleman, of Nantucket, who, in revenge for some fancied grievance, towed a rotten water-cask ashore, and left it in a neglected _taro_ patch, where the ground was moist and warm. Musquitoes were the result. "When tormented by them, I found much relief in coupling the word Coleman with another of one syllable, and pronouncing them together energetically." The musquito chapter is very amusing, showing the various comical and ingenious manoeuvres of the friends to avoid their tormentors, and obtain a night's sleep. At last they entered a fishing canoe, paddled some distance from shore, and dropped the native anchor, a stone secured to a rope. They were awakened in the morning by the motion of their boat. Zeke was wading in the shallow water, and towing them from a reef towards which they had drifted. "The water-sprites had rolled our stone out of its noose, and we had floated away." This was a narrow escape, but nevertheless they stuck to their floating bedstead as the only possible sleeping place. A day's successful hunting, followed by a famous supper and jollification under a banian-tree, put the doctor in good humour, and he made himself vastly agreeable. The natives beheld his waggish pranks with infinite admiration, and Zeke looked upon him with particular favour; so much so, that when upon the following morning an order came from a ship at Papeetee, for a supply of potatoes, he almost hesitated to tell funny Peter to assist in digging them up. But the emergency pressed, and the work must be done. So Peter and Paul were set to unearth the vegetables. This was no very cruel task, for "the rich tawny soil seemed specially adapted to the crop; the great yellow murphies rolling out of the hills like eggs from a nest." But when they were dug up, they had to be carried to the beach; and to this part of the business the lazy adventurers had a special dislike, although Zeke kindly provided them, to lighten their toil, with what he called the barrel machine--a sort of rural sedan, in which the servants carried their loads with comparative ease, whilst their employers sweated under shouldered hampers. But no alleviation could reconcile the sailor and the physician to this novel and unpleasant labour, and the potato-digging was the last piece of work, deserving the name, that either of them did. A few days afterwards they gave their masters warning, greatly to the vexation of Zeke, although he received the notice--with true Yankee imperturbability. He proposed that Long Ghost, who, after the hunt, had shown, considerable culinary skill, should assume the office of cook, and that Paul-Typee should only work when it suited him, which would not have been very often. The offer was friendly and favourable, but it was refused. A hospitable invitation to remain as guests as long as was convenient to them, was likewise rejected, and, bent upon a ramble, the restless adventurers left the vale of Martair. Even greater inducements would probably have been insufficient to keep them there. They had been so long on the rove, that change of scene had become essential to their happiness. The doctor, especially, was anxious to be off to Tamai, an inland village on the borders of a lake, where the fruits were the finest, and the women the most beautiful and unsophisticated in all the Society Islands. Epicurean Long Ghost had set his mind upon visiting this terrestrial paradise, and thither his steady chum willingly accompanied him. It was a day's journey on foot, allowing time for dinner and siesta; and the path lay through wood and ravine, unpeopled save by wild cattle. About noon they reached the heart of the island, thus pleasantly described. "It was a green, cool hollow among the mountains, into which we at last descended with a bound. The place was gushing with a hundred springs, and shaded over with great solemn trees, on whose mossy boles the moisture stood in beads." There is something delightfully hydropathic in these lines; they cool one like a shower-bath. He is a prime fellow, this common sailor Melville, at such scraps of description, terse and true, placing the scene before us in ten words. In long yarns he indulges not, but of such happy touches as the above, we could quote a score. We have not room, either for them, or for an account of the valley of Tamai, its hospitable inhabitants, and its heathenish dances, performed in secret, and in dread of the missionaries, by whom such saturnalia are forbidden. The place was altogether so pleasant, that the doctor and his friend entertained serious thoughts of settling there, or at least of making a long stay, when one morning they were put to flight by the arrival of strangers, said to be missionaries, with whom, vagrants as they were, they had no wish to fall in. So they returned to their friend Zeke, nursing new and ambitious projects. They had no intention of remaining with the good-hearted Yankee, but merely paid him a flying visit, and that with an interested motive. What they wanted of him was this. Although feeling themselves gentlemen every inch, they were not always able to convince the world of their respectability. So they resolved to have a passport, and pitched upon Zeke to manufacture it, he being well known and much respected in Imeeo. Zeke was gratified by the compliment, and set to work with a rooster's quill, and a piece of dirty paper. "Evidently he was not accustomed to composition; for his literary throes were so violent, that the doctor suggested that some sort of a Caesarian operation might be necessary. The precious paper was at last finished; and a great curiosity it was. We were much diverted with his reasons for not dating it. 'In this here damned climate,' he observed, 'a feller can't keep the run of the months, no how; 'cause there's no seasons, no summer and winter to go by. One's etarnally thinking it's always July, it's so pesky hot.' A passport provided, we cast about for some means of getting to Taloo."

The decline of the Tahitian monarchy--the degradation of the regal house of Pomaree, is painful to contemplate. The queen still wears a crown--a tinsel one, received as a present from her sister-sovereign of England,--she has also a court and a palace, such as they are; but her power is little more than nominal, her exchequer seldom otherwise than empty. Typee draws a touching contrast between times past and present. "'I'm a greater man than King George,' said the incorrigible young Otoo, to the first missionaries; 'he rides on a horse and I on a man.' Such was the case. He travelled post through his dominions on the shoulders of his subjects, and relays of immortal beings were provided in all the valleys. But, alas! how times have changed! how transient human greatness! Some years since, Pomaree Vahinee I., granddaughter of the proud Otoo, went into the laundry business, publicly soliciting, by her agents, the washing of the linen belonging to officers of ships touching in her harbours." Into the court of this washerwoman-queen, Typee and Long Ghost were exceedingly anxious to penetrate. Vague ideas of favour and preferment haunted their brains. During their Polynesian cruise, they had seen many instances of rapid advancement; vagabond foreigners, of all nations, domesticated in the families of chiefs and kings, and sometimes married to their daughters and sharing their power. At one of the Tonga islands, a scamp of a Welshman officiated as cupbearer to the king of the cannibals. The monarch of the Sandwich islands has three foreigners about his court--a Negro to beat the drum, a wooden-legged Portuguese to play the fiddle, and Mordecai, a juggler, to amuse his majesty with cups and balls and sleight of hand. On the Marquesan island of Hivarhoo, they had found an English sailor who had attained to the highest dignity in the country. He had deserted from a merchant ship, and at once set up, on his own hook, as an independent sovereign, without dominions, but by disposition most belligerent. A musket and a store of cartridges were his whole possessions; but in a land where war was rife, carried on with the primitive weapons of spear and javelin, they were sufficiently important to make a native prince covet his alliance. His first battle was a decisive victory, a perfect Waterloo, and he became the Wellington of Hivarhoo, receiving, as reward for his distinguished services, the hand of a princess, and a splendid dowry of hogs, mats, and other produce. To conform to the prejudices of his new family, he allowed himself to be tattooed, tabooed, and otherwise paganized, becoming as big a savage as any in the island. A blue shark adorned his forehead; a broad bar, of the same colour, traversed his face. The tabooing was a less ornamental but more decidedly useful formality, for by it his person was declared sacred and inviolable. Typee and his medical friend had a strong prejudice against cerulean sharks and the like embellishments; but if these could be dispensed with, they felt no disinclination to form part of Pomaree's household. They had not quite made up their minds what office would best suit them, but their circumstances were unprosperous, and they resolved not to be particular. They understood that the queen was mustering around her all the foreigners she could recruit, to make head against the French. She was then at Taloo, a village on the coast of Imeeo, and thither the two adventurers betook themselves, hoping to be at once elevated to important posts at court; but quite resigned, in case of disappointment, to work as day-labourers in a sugar-plantation, or go to sea in a whaler, then in the harbour for wood and water. Disgusted with their desultory, hand-to-mouth existence, they yearned after respectability and a prime-ministership. To their sanguine anticipations, both of these seemed easy of attainment. Long Ghost, indeed, who, amongst his various accomplishments, was a very Orpheus upon the violin, insisted strongly upon the probability of his becoming a Tahitian Rizzio. But a necessary preliminary to the realisation of these day-dreams, was a presentation at court, and that was difficult to obtain. Once before Queen Pomaree, they doubted not but she, with Napoleonic sagacity, would discern their merits, and forthwith make Typee her admiral, and Long Ghost inspector-general of hospitals. But they lacked an introduction. The proper course, according to the practice of travelling nobodies, desirous of intruding their plebeianism into a foreign court, would have been to apply to their ambassadors. Unfortunately Deputy-Consul Wilson, the only person at hand of a diplomatic character, was by no means disposed to act as master of the ceremonies to the insurgents of the Julia. And their costume, it must be confessed, scarcely qualified them to appear at levee or drawing-room. A short time previously, their ragged and variegated garb had given them much the look of a brace of Polynesian Robert Macaires. Typee had made himself a new frock out of two old ones, a blue and a red, the irregular mingling of the colours producing a pleasing parrot-like effect; a tattered shirt of printed calico was twisted round his head, turban-fashion, the sleeves dangling behind, and bullock's-hide sandals protected his feet. The doctor was still more fantastical in his attire. He sported a _roora_, a garment similar to the South American poncho, a sort of mantle or blanket, with a hole in the centre, through which the head passes. This simple article of apparel, which in the doctor's case was of coarse brown tappa, fell in folds around his angular carcass, and in conjunction with a broad-brimmed hat of Panama grass, gave him the aspect of a decayed grandee. Thus clad, the two friends arrived in the neighbourhood of the royal residence, and there were fortunate enough to fall in with Mrs Po-Po, a benevolent Tahitian matron, who provided them with clean frocks and trousers, such as sailors wear, and in all respects was as good as a mother to them. Her husband, Jeremiah Po-Po, a man of substance and consideration, made them welcome in his house, fed and fostered them, without hope of fee or recompense. A little of this generous hospitality was owing to the hypocrisy of that villain, Long Ghost, who, finding his entertainers devoutly disposed, muttered a "Grace before Meat" over the succulent little porkers, baked _a la facon de Barbarie_ in the ground, upon which their kind-hearted Amphitrion regaled them. But neither clean canvass, nor simulated piety, sufficed to draw upon the ambitious schemers the favourable notice of Queen Pomaree. Accustomed to sailors, she held them cheap. A uniform, though but the moth-eaten undress of a militia ensign, would have been a powerful auxiliary to their projects of aggrandisement. Like some others of her sex, Pomaree loves a soldier's coat, and maintained in more prosperous days a formidable regiment of body-guards, in pasteboard shakos, and without breeches.

To go to court, however, Typee and his comrade were fully resolved; and they were not very scrupulous as to the manner of their introduction. They made up to a Marquesan gentleman of herculean proportions, whose office it was to take the princes of the blood an airing in his arms. Typee, who spoke his language, and had been at his native village, soon ingratiated himself with Marbonna, who introduced them to one of the queen's chamberlains. Bribery and corruption now came into play: a plug of tobacco, proved an excellent passport to within the royal precincts, but then Marbonna was suddenly called away, and the intruders found themselves abandoned to their fate amongst the ladies of the court, amiable and affable damsels, whom a little "soft sawder" induced to conduct them into the queen's own drawing room. Here were collected numerous costly articles of European manufacture, sent as presents to Pomaree. Writing-desks, cut glass and beautiful china, valuable engravings, and gilt candelabras, arms and instruments of all kinds, lay scratched and broken, musty and rusting amongst greasy calabashes, old matting, paddles, fish-spears, and rubbish of all kinds. It was supper-time; and presently the queen came out of her private boudoir, attired in a blue silk gown and rich shawls, but without shoes or stockings. She lay down upon a mat, and fed herself with her fingers. Presumptuous Long Ghost, unabashed before royalty, was for immediately introducing himself and friend; but the attendants opposed this forward proceeding, and, in doing so, made such a fuss that the queen looked up from her calabash of fish, perceived the strangers, and ordered them out. Such was the first and last interview between Typee the mariner and Pomaree the queen.

"Disappointed in going to court, we determined upon going to sea." The Leviathan, an American whaler, lay in harbour, and Typee shipped on board her. Long Ghost would have done the same, but the Yankee captain disliked the cut of his jib, swore he was a "Sidney bird," and would have nought to say to him. So Typee divided his advance of wages with the medical spectre--drank with him a parting bottle of wine, surreptitiously purchased from a pilfering member of Pomaree's household--and sailed on a whaling cruise to the coast of Japan. We look forward with confidence and interest to an account of what there befel him.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] _Omoo; A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas._ By HERMAN MELVILLE. London: 1847.

ON THE NUTRITIVE QUALITIES OF THE BREAD NOW IN USE.

BY PROFESSOR JOHNSTON.

A few plain words on this subject may not be unacceptable to the popular reader at the present time.

We are fond of what is agreeable to the eye as well as pleasant to the taste, and therefore we love to have our bread made of the whitest and finest of the wheat. Attaching superior excellence to what thus pleases the eye, we call the good Scotch bannock an inferior food, and the wholesome black bread of the north of Europe a disgusting article of diet. When our experience and knowledge are local and confined, our opinions necessarily partake of a similar character.

In regard to the different qualities of wheaten flour, our judgments are not so severe. All things which pertain to this aristocratic grain--this staff of English life--like the liveries and horses of a great man--are treated with a certain degree of respect. Still, they are only the appendages of the noble seed, and the more thoroughly they are got rid of, the better the kernel is supposed to become.

In many of our old-fashioned families, indeed, the practice still lingers of baking bread from the whole meal of wheat for common use in the kitchen or hall, and for occasional consumption on the master's table. An enthusiastic physician also now and then rouses himself, and does battle with the national organs of taste on behalf of the darker bread, and the browner flour--and dyspeptic old gentlemen or mammas who have over-pampered their sickly darlings, listen to his fervid warnings, and the star of the brown loaf is for a month or two in the ascendant.

But gradually the warning sound is lost to the alarmed ear, and the pulses of the commoved air waft it on to mingle with the thousand other long-quenched voices which people the distant realms of space, and form together that unutterable harmony which, by consent of the poets, is named the music of the spheres.

There are times, however, when good men, though aware of this passing tendency of human efforts, and of the thankless impotency of a struggle against the public voice--that _vox populi_ which wise men (so-called) have pronounced to be also _vox Dei_--will nevertheless return to what they believe to be a useful though unvalued labour. The present is one in which any thing which can be said in favour of the less-valued parts of our imperial grain, will be more readily listened to than at any other period in the life-time of the existing generation; and being listened to, may be productive of the greatest national good.

I propose, therefore, to show, in an intelligible manner, that whole meal flour is really more nourishing, as well as more wholesome, than fine white flour as food for man.

The solid parts of the human body consist, principally, of three several portions: the fat, the muscle, and the bone. These three substances are liable to constant waste in the living body, and therefore must be constantly renewed from the food that we eat. The vegetable food we consume contains these three substances almost ready formed. The plant is the brick-maker. The animal voluntarily introduces these bricks into its stomach, and then involuntarily--through the operation of the mysterious machinery within--picks out these bricks, transports them to the different parts of the body, and builds them into their appropriate places. As the miller at his mill throws into the hopper the unground grain, and forthwith, by the involuntary movements of the machinery, receives in his several sacks the fine flour, the seconds, the middlings, the pollard, and the bran; so in the human body, by a still more refined separation, the fat is extracted and deposited here, the muscular matter there, and the bony material in a third locality, where it can not only be stored up, but where its presence is actually at the moment necessary.

Again, the fluid parts of the body contain the same substances in a liquid form, on their way to or from the several parts of the body in which they are required. They include also a portion of salt or saline matter which is dissolved in them, as we dissolve common salt in our soup, or Epsom salts in the pleasant draughts with which our doctors delight to vex us. This saline matter is also obtained from the food.

Now, it is self-evident, that that food must be the most nourishing which supplies all these ingredients of the body most abundantly on the whole, or in proportions most suited to the actual wants of the individual animal to which it is given.

How stands the question, then, in regard to this point between the brown bread and the white--the fine flour, and the whole meal of wheat?

The grain of wheat consists of two parts, with which the miller is familiar--the inner grain and the skin that covers it. The inner grain gives the pure wheat flour; the skin, when separated, forms the bran. The miller cannot entirely peel off the skin from his grain, and thus some of it is unavoidably ground up with his flour. By sifting, he separates it more or less completely: his seconds, middlings, &c., owing their colour to the proportion of brown bran that has passed through the sieve along with the flour. The whole meal, as it is called, of which the so-named brown _household bread_ is made, consists of the entire grain ground up together--used as it comes from the mill-stones unsifted, and therefore containing all the bran.

The first white flour, therefore, may be said to contain no bran, while the whole meal contains all that grew naturally upon the grain.

What is the composition of these two portions of the seed? How much do they respectively contain of the several constituents of the animal body? How much of each is contained also in the whole grain?

1. _The fat._ Of this ingredient a thousand pounds of the

Whole grain contain 28 lbs.
Fine Flour, " 20 "
Bran, " 60 "

So that the bran is much richer in fat than the interior part of the grain, and the whole grain ground together (whole meal) richer than the finer part of the flour in the proportion of nearly one half.

2. _The muscular matter._ I have had no opportunity as yet of ascertaining the relative proportions of this ingredient in the bran and fine flour of the same sample of grain. Numerous experiments, however, have been made in my laboratory, to determine these proportions in the fine flour and whole seed of several varieties of grain. The general result of these is, that the whole grain uniformly contains a larger quantity, weight for weight, than the fine flour extracted from it does. The particular results in the case of wheat and Indian corn were as follows:--A thousand pounds of the whole grain and of the fine flour contained of muscular matter respectively,--

_Whole grain._ _Fine Flour._ Wheat, 156 lbs. 130 lbs. Indian Corn, 140 110

Of the material out of which the animal muscle is to be formed, the whole meal or grain of wheat contains one-fifth more than the finest flour does. For maintaining muscular strength, therefore, it must be more valuable in an equal proportion.

3. _Bone material and Saline matter._--Of these mineral constituents, as they may be called, of the animal body, a thousand pounds of bran, whole meal and fine flour, contain respectively,--

Bran, 700 lbs.
Whole meal, 170 "
Fine flour, 60 "

So that in regard to this important part of our food, necessary to all living animals, but especially to the young who are growing, and to the mother who is giving milk--the whole meal is three times more nourishing than the fine flour.

Our case is now made out. Weight for weight, the whole grain or meal is more rich in all these three essential elements of a nutritive food, than the fine flour of wheat. By those whose only desire is to sustain their health and strength by the food they eat, ought not the whole meal to be preferred? To children who are rapidly growing, the browner the bread they eat, the more abundant the supply of the materials from which their increasing bones and muscles are to be produced. To the milk-giving mother, the same food, and for a similar reason, is the most appropriate.

A glance at their mutual relations in regard to the three substances, presented in one view, will show this more clearly. A thousand pounds of each contain of the three several ingredients the following proportions.

Whole meal. Fine flour. Muscular matter, 156 lbs. 130 lbs. Bone material, 170 " 60 " Fat, 28 " 20 "

Total in each, 354 210

Taking the three ingredients, therefore, together, the whole meal is one-half more valuable for fulfilling all the purposes of nutrition than the fine flour--and especially it is so in regard to the feeding of the young, the pregnant, and those who undergo much bodily fatigue.

It will not be denied that it is for a wise purpose that the Deity has so intimately associated, in the grain, the several substances which are necessary for the complete nutrition of animal bodies. The above considerations show how unwise we are in attempting to undo this natural collocation of materials. To please the eye and the palate, we sift out a less generally nutritive food,--and, to make up for what we have removed, experience teaches us to have recourse to animal food of various descriptions.

It is interesting to remark, even in apparently trivial things, how all nature is full of compensating processes. We give our servants household bread, while we live on the finest of the wheat ourselves. The mistress eats that which pleases the eye more, the maid what sustains and nourishes the body better.

But the whole meal is more wholesome, as well as more nutritive. It is on account of its superior wholesomeness that those who are experienced in medicine usually recommend it to our attention. Experience in the laws of digestion brings us back to the simple admixture found in the natural seed. It is not an accidental thing that the proportions in which the ingredients of a truly sustaining food take their places in the seeds on which we live, should be best fitted at once to promote the health of the sedentary scholar, and to reinvigorate the strength of the active man when exhausted by bodily labour.

Some may say that the preceding observations are merely theoretical; and may demand the support of actual trial, before they will concede that the selection of the most nourishing and wholesome diet is hereafter to be regulated by the results of chemical analysis. The demand is reasonable in itself, and the so-called deductions of theory are entitled only to the rank of probable conjectures, till they have been tested by exact and repeated trials.

But such in this case have been made; and our theoretical considerations come in only to confirm the results of previous experiments--to explain why these results should have been obtained, and to extend and enforce the practical lessons which the results themselves appeared to inculcate.

Thus, from the experiments of Majendie and others, it was known that animals which in a few weeks died if fed only upon fine flour, lived long upon whole meal bread. The reason appears from our analytical investigations. The whole meal contains in large quantity the three forms of matter by which the several parts of the body are sustained, or successively renewed. We may feed a man long upon bread and water only, but unless we wish to kill him also, we must have the apparent cruelty to restrict him to the coarser kinds of bread. The charity which should supply him with fine white loaves instead, would in effect kill him by a lingering starvation.

Again, the pork-grower who buys bran from the miller, wonders at the remarkable feeding and fattening effect which this apparently woody and useless material has upon his animals. The surprise ceases, however, and the practice is encouraged, and extended to other creatures, when the researches of the laboratory explain to him what the food itself contains, and what his growing animal requires.

Economy as well as comfort follow from an exact acquaintance with the wants of our bodies in their several conditions, and with the composition of the various articles of diet which are at our command. In the present condition of the country, this economy has become a vital question. It is a kind of Christian duty in every one to practise it as far as his means and his knowledge enable him.

Perhaps the amount of the economy which would follow the use of whole meal instead of fine flour, may not strike every one who reads the above observations. The saving arises from two sources.

First, The amount of husk, separated by the miller from the wheat which he grinds, and which is not sold for human use, varies very much. I think we do not over-estimate it, when we consider it as forming one-eighth of the whole. On this supposition, eight pounds of wheat yield seven of flour consumed by man, and one of pollard and bran which are given to animals--chiefly to poultry and pigs. If the whole meal be used, however, eight pounds of flour will be obtained, or eight people will be fed by the same weight of grain which only fed seven before.

Again, we have seen that the whole meal is more nutritious--so that this coarser flour will go farther than an equal weight of the fine. The numbers at which we arrived, from the results of analysis, show that, taking all the three sustaining elements of the food into consideration, the coarse is one-half more nutritive than the fine. Leaving a wide margin for the influence of circumstances, let us suppose it only one-eighth more nutritive, and we shall have now nine people nourished equally by the same weight of grain, which, when eaten as fine flour, would support only seven. _The wheat of the country_, in other words, _would in this form go one-fourth farther than at present_.

But some one may remark, if all this good is to come from the mere use of the bran, why not recommend it to be withheld from the pigs, and consume it by man in some way alone? This would involve no change in the practice of our millers, and little in the habits and bread of the great mass of the population.

But such a course, if possible, would not bring us to the economical end we wish to attain. Suppose it could be made palatable and eaten by man, little comparative saving would be effected.

First, because, when eaten alone, the fine flour will not go so far as when mixed with a certain proportion of bran: that is to say,--a given weight of fine flour will produce an increased nutritive effect when mixed with the bran: greater than is due to the constituents of the bran taken alone. The mixture of the two in reality increases the virtues of both. Again, if eaten alone, bran would prove too difficult, and therefore slow of digestion in most stomachs. Much would thus pass, unexhausted of its nutritive matter, through the alimentary canal, as whole oats often do through that of horses, and thus a considerable waste would ensue.

And further, supposing all to be dissolved in the stomach, there would still, of necessity, be a waste of material, since the bran actually contains a larger proportion of bone material and saline matter compared with its other ingredients, than the body, in its natural healthy state, can make use of. All this excess must, therefore, be rejected by the body, and, as nutritive matter, for the time be wasted.

Lastly, it is doubtful if bran alone contains enough of starch, or of any substitute for it, to meet the other demands of the human system. I have not spoken of the use of the starch of the grain in the preceding observations, because, as both whole meal and fine flour contain a sufficient quantity of it to supply the wants of the living animal, it was unnecessary to the main object of this paper. But with bran the case is different. It is doubtful if the purposes of the starch could be fully, and with sufficient speed, fulfilled by the ingredients which, in the bran, take the place of starch in the flour. The cellular fibre or woody matter, of which it contains a considerable proportion, is too slowly soluble in the stomachs of ordinary men. While, therefore, much of it would pass through the body undigested, it would require to be eaten in far larger proportions than its composition indicates, if the body was to be supported, and thus a further waste would be incurred.

On the whole, therefore, we come back to the whole meal, as the most economical as well as the most nutritive and wholesome form in which the grain of wheat can be consumed. The Deity has done far better for us, by the natural mixtures to be found in the whole seed, than we can do for ourselves. The materials, both in form and in proportion, are adjusted in each seed, as wheat, in a way more suitable to us than any which, with our present knowledge, we appear able to devise.

A word to our Scottish readers, before we conclude. We do not recommend to you even the whole meal of wheat as a substitute for your oatmeal or your oaten-cake. The oat is more nutritive even than the whole grain of wheat, taken weight for weight. For the growing boy, for the hard-working man, and for the portly matron, oatmeal contains the materials of the most hearty nourishment. This it owes in part to its peculiar chemical composition, and in part to its being, as it is used in Scotland, a kind of whole meal. The finely sifted oatmeal of Yorkshire and Lancashire is not so agreeable to a Scottish taste, and, I believe, is not so nutritious, as the rounder and coarser meal of the more northern counties.

While, therefore, the whole meal of wheat is superior to the fine flour, in economy, in nutritive power, and in wholesomeness, and therefore should be preferred by those who _must_ live upon wheat,--in all these respects the oat has still the advantage, and therefore ought religiously to be adhered to. You owe it to the experience of your forefathers, for a thousand years, not to forsake it.

_Lurham, 19th May, 1847._

INDEX TO VOL. LXI.

Abdul Medjid, the Sultan, 693.

Adalia, sketches of, 737.

Addington, Henry, see _Sidmouth_.

Addington, Hiley, 475.

Adelaide, Madame, 2, 7, 8, 12.

Adventures of the Connaught Rangers, review of, 457.

Aidan, Bishop, 84.

Albemarle, Lord, 201.

Albert, Madame, 186.

Ambrosio, General, 174.

America, origin of the struggle with, 207.

America, how they manage matters in, 492.

America, North, 653.

Ancient and Modern Ballad Poetry, 622.

Anglo-Saxons, Lappenberg's History of the, reviewed, 79.

Angouleme, the Duc d', 5, 6.

Appert, B. Dix ans a la Cour du Roi Louis Philippe, review of, 1.

Aquilius, Letter from, to Eusebius, 374
--second, 501
--third, 695.

Arabs in Batavia, the, 321.

Archangel, New, settlement of, 661.

Armenians of Smyrna, the, 238.

Arnal, a French actor, 185.

Arnault, M., 15.

Arthur, King, 81.

Assessed Taxes, inequalities of, 248.

Aumale, Duc d', 17.

Badajos, capture of, 468.

Ballad Poetry, ancient and modern, 622.

Balzac, M. de, 16, works of, 591.

Banditti of Spain, the, 356.

Batavia, city of, 320.

Baths of Mont Dor, the, 448
--the company at, 451
--the forest, 454.

Belgrade, siege and battle of, 36.

Belisarius,--was he blind? 606.

Benedict Biscop, 87.

Bernard, Charles de, notices of the works of, 589.

Berri, Duchesse de, 530.

Blackwall, ode to, 59.

Blucher, sketches of, 76.

Bolingbroke, Lord, 204.

Bonabat, village of, 241.

Bouffe, Marie, 189.

Boufflers, Marshal, 35, 36.

Boujah, village of, 241.

Bread, on the nutritive qualities of, by Professor Johnston, 768.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, sonnets by:
--Life, 555
--Love, _ib._
--Heaven and Earth, 556
--The Prospect, _ib._
--Two Sketches, 683
--The Mountaineer and the Poet, 684
--the Poet, _ib._

Brunet, an actor, 187.

Bruhl, Count, 209.

Bunzelwitz, camp and battle of, 43.

Buonaparte, Joseph, as King of Naples, 168.

Burgos, the retreat from, 471.

Burke, notices of, 483, 484, 487.

Busaco, battle of, 460.

Canning, Peel's conduct towards, 97.

California, sketches of, 662.

Caravan Bridge of Smyrna, the, 239.

Carbonari of Naples, the, 173.

Cardinal's voyage, the, 430.

Carlyle's Cromwell, review of, 392.

Caroline, Queen of Naples, 164, 167.

Catherine of Russia, intimacy of, with Voltaire, 537.

Catholic question, Peel's conduct on the, 97.

Catullus, translations from, No. I., 374
--No. II., 501
--No. III., 695.

Cave of the Regicides, the, and how three of them fared in New England, 333.

Championet, General, capture of Naples by, 163.

Chapelle, an actor, 185.

Charles X., accession of, 6.

Charles de Bernard, works of, 589.

Chateauroux, the Duchess of, 206, 530.

Chatham, Lord, 474, 475.

Cheri, Rose, 191.

Chesterfield, Lord, character of, by Walpole, 198.

Chinese in Batavia, the, 321.

Church rate, inequality of the, 250.

Ciudad Rodrigo, capture of, 467.

Claqueurs of Paris, the, 183.

Collier's book of Roxburghe ballads, review of, 622.

Connaught Rangers, sketches of the, 457.

Constantine Kanaris, epitaph of, 644.

Constantinople, and the declining state of the Ottoman empire, 685.

Corn law, Peel's conduct regarding the, 99.

Court of Louis Philippe, sketches of the, 1.

Cromwell, Carlyle's life of, reviewed, 392.

Cunnersdorf, battle of, 42.

Cunningham's poems and songs, review of, 622.

Dardanelles, the, 686.

Daun, Marshal, 40, 42.

Dejazet the actress, 189.

Delta, Scottish Melodies by:
--Eric's Dirge, 91
--The Stormy Sea, _ib._
--The Maid of Ulva, 645
--Lament for Macrimmon, _ib._

Direct Taxation, on, 243
--true principles of, 258.

Divining Rod, the, 368.

Dixwell, John, the Regicide, 338.

Doche, Madame, 187.

Doddington, Bubb, 201, 202, 210.

Dore, a French robber, sketches of, 4.

Dubois, the Abbe, 530.

Duckworth, Sir John, forcing of the Dardanelles by, 686.

Dumas, General, 168.

Dumas, M. de, and his works, 16, 590, 591.

Durham, Lord, 15, 16.

Dutch, cruelties of the, in Java, 327.

Early Taken, the, 230.

Egmont, Lord, 197.

Ekaterineburg, town of, 671.

England, uniform triumphs of, over France, 48.

Epigrams, 361.

Epitaphs, 57, 61.

Epitaph of Constantine Kanaris, the, 644.

Eric's dirge, by Delta, 91.

Erith, village of, 423.

Erskine, Lord, 488.

Eugene, Marlborough, Frederick, Napoleon, and Wellington, 34.

Eusebius, letters to--Horae Catullianae, 374, 501, 695.

Famine, lessons from the, 515.

Ferdinand, king of Naples, 163, 164, 167.

Ferguson of Pitfour, anecdotes of, 488.

Fighting Eighty-eighth, the, 457.

Flour, on the various kinds of, and their nutritive qualities, 768.

Fontenoy, battle of, 535.

Ford's gatherings from Spain, review of, 350.

Fossa del Maritimo, prison of, 167.

Fox, anecdotes of, 488.

France, the modern court of, 1.

France, uniform triumphs of England over, 48.

France, Walpole's picture of, 206.

France, letter on, 547.

Frederick the Great, sketch of the career of, and comparison of him with Marlborough and others, 37 --his intimacy with Voltaire, 537.

Frederick, prince of Wales, death of, and his character, 200.

Free trade in connexion with taxation, 243.

French players and playhouses, 177.

Fuentes d' Onore, battle of, 462.

Galata, sketches of, 688.

General Mack: a Christmas carol, 92.

George II., Walpole's reign of, reviewed, 194.

George III., anecdotes of, 490.

Georges, characteristics of the reigns of the, 211.

Ghosts, letters on, 440, 541.

Gneisenau, General, 77.

Goffe the Regicide, 333.

Gold district of Siberia, the, 671.

Grand Opera at Paris, the, 180, 182.

Grattan's Adventures of the Connaught Rangers, review of, 457.

Greeks of Adalia, the, 750.

Grey, Lord, first appearance of, 479.

Guilleminot, Count, 6.

Gutch's Robin Hood, review of, 622.

Gymnase Dramatique at Paris, the, 190.

Hastings, Warren, trial of, 478, 487.

Heaven and Earth, a Sonnet, 556.

Heptarchy, the, 79.

Hervey's Theatres of Paris, review of, 177.

Highway Rates, inequalities of, 249.

Hohenfriedberg, battle of, 39.

Hohenkirchen, battle of, 42.

Horae Catullianae, No. I., 374
--No. II., 501
--No. III., 695.

Horn, Count de, execution of, 534.

How they manage matters in the model republic, 492.

How to build a house and live in it,--No. III., 727.

Hughes' Overland Journey to Lisbon, review of, 350.

Hymn of King Olaf the Saint, the, altered from the Icelandic, 682.

Imeeo, residence on island of, 763.

Income Tax, inequalities of the, 253.

Indian Life, anecdotes of, 658, 659, 660.

Indirect Taxes, probable abandonment of, in Great Britain, 244, 245.

Ireland, state of, under George II., 205
--necessity of Poor Law for, 247
--unjust exemption from taxation enjoyed by, 256.

Isle of Dogs, the, 50
--tradition regarding, 52.

Italian History, modern, 162.

Java, sketches of, 318.

Joinville, Prince de, 17.

Johnston, Professor, on the nutritive qualities of the Bread now in use, 768.

Jones, Neville, 205.

Jutland 130 years since, from the Danish
--I., the Deer Rider, 286
--II., Ansbjerg, 289
--III., the Nisse, 292
--IV., the Elopement, 297
--V., the Horse Garden, 303.

Kawashes of Turkey, the, 235.

Khan of Magnesia, the, 309.

Khans of Turkey, the, 236.

Kiachta, town of, 670.

Kolin, battle of, 41.

Krasnoyayk, town of, 671.

Lafayette, sketches of, 5.

Lament for Macrimmon, by Delta, 645.

Land, injustice of the freedom of, from legacy duty, 246.

Land Tax, injustice of the, 248.

Landsheck, battle of, 42.

Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxons, review of, 79.

Latest from the Peninsula, 350.

Law of Lauriston, 533, 534.

Lays and Legends of the Thames, No. II., 49
--the Isle of Dogs, 50
--the Song of the Mail Coachman, 51
--the Presentation, 55
--Epitaphs, 57, 61
--Ode to Blackwall, 59
--the Poet's Auction, 62
--No. III., 423
--the Vision, 424
--the Arsenal, 426
--True Love, 428
--the Cardinals' voyage, 430.

Legacy duty, inequality of the, 246.

Lemaitre, the Marquis, 166.

Lemaitre, Frederick, 188.

Lena, the river, 669.

Lessons from the Famine, 515.

Letters on the Truths contained in Popular Superstitions,
--No. I., the Divining Rod, 368
--II., Vampyrism, 432
--III., Spirits, Goblins, Ghosts, 440
--IV., Real Ghosts and Second Sight, 541
--V., Trance and Sleep-waking, 547
--VI., Religious Delusions, the Possessed, Witchcraft, 673.

Lettres de Cachet, profligate use of, in France, 538.

Levasseur the actor, 192.

Leuthen, battle of, 41.

Life, a sonnet, 555.

Lord Sidmouth's Life and Times, 473.

Louis XV., sketches of, by Walpole, 206.

Louis XV., De Tocqueville's Memoirs of, reviewed, 525.

Louis Philippe, sketches of the court of, 1
--his elevation, 8
--and personal habits, 9.

Love, a sonnet, 555.

Lowositz, battle of, 40.

Macdonald, General, administration of Naples by, 164.

Mack, General, a Christmas carol, 92.

Mack, General, at Naples, 163.

Magnesia, a ride to, stage first, 231
--II. 305.

Mahmood, the Sultan, 694.

Maid of Ulva, the, by Delta, 645.

Maida, battle of, 168.

Mail Coachman, song of the, 51.

Maison Doree at Paris, the, 177.

Mammone, a Neapolitan bandit, 164.

Mammoth deposits of Siberia, the, 670.

Maria Theresa, accession of, and war against, 38.

Marie Amelie, Queen of Louis Philippe, 7, 8, 11.

Marlborough, comparison of, with Eugene, &c., 34.

Marriage Bill, the Scotch, 646.

Marsin, Marshal, 35.

Massillon, 532.

Mazarine, Cardinal, French Opera originated by, 180.

Melville's Omoo, review of, 754.

Merimee, Prosper, notices of the works of, 695.

Merkatz, Lieutenant, 67, 68.

Mexican War, the, 667.

Mildred, a tale, Chap. IV., 18
--Chap. V., 23
--Chap. VI., 28
--Chap. VII., 213
--Chap. VIII., 217
--Chap. IX., 222.

Minden, battle of, 42.

Minerals of Lake Superior, the, 658.

Mississippi Scheme, the, 533.

Modern Italian History, 162.

Mollwitz, battle of, 38.

Mont Dor, baths of, 448.

Montebello, Duchess of, 5.

Monterey, town of, 664.

Montreal, town of, 655.

Motherwell's Poems, review of, 622.

Mountaineer and Poet, the, a sonnet, 684.

Muleteers of Spain, the, 352, 354.

Murat, sketches of, 166, 167
--as King of Naples, 170
--death of, 175, 176.

Murray, a Jacobite, sketches of, 196.

Music, Turkish, 749.

Mytilene, Island of, 736.

Naples, sketch of the recent history of, 162.

Napoleon, comparison of Frederick the Great with, 34, 45.

Nashua, town of, 654.

Nemours, the Duc de, 17.

New Archangel, settlement of, 661.

New Sentimental Journey, a
--the Baths of Mont Dor, 448
--the Company, 451
--the Forest, 454.

Newcastle, the Duke of, character of, by Walpole, 202.

New England, Residence of three of the Regicides in, 333.

Newhaven, grave of the Regicides at, 334.

North America, Siberia, and Russia, 653.

Nugent, Lord, Walpole's character of, 197.

Oatmeal, superiority of, to wheat, 772.

Ochotsk, town of, 668.

Oglou, Pasha, 235.

Olaf the Saint, the Hymn of, altered from the Icelandic, 682.

Omoo, review of, 754.

Orleans, Dowager Duchess of, Anecdote of, 11.

Orleans, the Regent, 530.

Opera Comique at Paris, the, 180.

Oswald, Prince, 84.

Ottoman Empire, present state of the, 685.

Overland Journey round the Globe, Simpson's, review of, 653.

Pacific Rovings, 754.

Pano di Grajo, a Neapolitan leader, 165, 169.

Palais Royal, the, 191.

Paris, Sketches of Society in, 13.

Passaruang, town of, 332.

Pauperism and its treatment, 261.

Peel, Sir Robert, reflections on the career of, 93.

Pelham, Lord, 204, 206.

Pellew's Life of Sidmouth, review of, 473.

Peninsula, latest from the, 350.

Pepe, General, review of the memoirs of, 162.

Pepe, Florestano, 172.

Personal character, importance of, to a statesman, 93.

Peterwardin, battle of, 36.

Picton and the Connaught Rangers, 457.

Pitt, first appearance of, 476
--notices of, 483, 484.

Poacher, the, or Jutland 130 years since, from the Danish.
--I. The Deer Rider, 286.
--II. Ansbjerg, 289.
--III. The Nisse, 292.
--IV. The Elopement, 297.
--V. The Horse Garden, 303.

Poet, the, a Sonnet, 684.

Poet's Auction, the, 62.

Poetry
--Eric's Dirge, by Delta, 91
--the Stormy Sea, by the same, _ib._
--General Mack, 92
--the Early Taken, 230
--To the Stethoscope, 361
--Epigrams, 367
--Four Sonnets, namely, Life, Love, Heaven and Earth, the Prospect,
by E. B. Browning, 555
--Epitaph of Constantine Kanaris, 644
--The Maid of Ulva, by Delta, 645
--The Lament of Macrimmon, by the same, _ib._
--The Hymn of King Olaf the Saint, 682
--Four Sonnets, by Elizabeth B. Browning, 683.

Police Rates, inequalities of, 250.

Polynesia, sketches of, 754.

Pomaree, Queen, 761, 766.

Pompadour, Madame de, 206.

Poor, treatment of the, 262.

Poors'-rate, inequality of the, 247.