proved to be of an animal nature, imbibing nourishment without vascular connexion with the cavity containing it, and reproducing its kind. How is an animal to be defined, if this be not one? The answer that the acephalocyst has no mouth, would be regarded as satisfactory, after the recognition of the animality of the astomatous Polygastria these, however, are locomotive and can propagate by spontaneous fission. But, definitions apart, our business is to discover to what organic thing the acephalocyst is most similar.

Almost all the animal tissues result from transformations of free cells, which grow by imbibition, and which develope their like from their nucleus of hyaline. It is to these primitive or fundamental forms of tissue that the acephalocyst bears the closest analogies in physical, chemical, and vital properties. When the infusorial monads are compared to such cells, and man's frame is said, by a figure of speech, to be made up of monads, the analogy is overstrained, because no mere organic cell has its cilia, its stomachs, its pulsatile sac, &c. So also it appears to me that the analogy has been equally overstrained, which makes the acephalocyst a kind of monad, or analogous species of animal.

We

may, with some truth, say that the human body is primarily composed or built up of hydatids; microscopical indeed, and which under natural and healthy conditions, are metamorphosed into cartilage, bone, nerve, muscular fibre, &c. When, instead of such change, the organic cells grow to dimensions which make them recognisable to the naked eye, such development of acephalocysts, as they are then called, is commonly connected in the human subject with an enfeeblement of the controlling plastic force, which at some of the weaker points of the frame, seems unable to direct the metamorphosis of the primitive cells along the right road to the tissues they were destined to form, but causes them to retain, as it were, their embryo condition, and to grow by the imbibition of the surrounding fluid, and thus become the means of injuriously affecting or destroying the tissues which they should have supported and repaired. I regard the dif ferent acephalocysts, therefore, as merely so many forms or species of morbid or dropsical cells.

But we must close our rambling remarks. We have only reached the fourth of the twenty-four lectures, and our limits are already warning us. A mass of notes must be laid aside, and the whole remain

We shall see some grounds for the statement that the more perfect animal is at no stage of its development different from some of the inferior species; but we shall obtain proof that such correspondence does not extend to every order of animals in the creation.

The extent to which the resemblance expressed by the term 'Unity of Organization,' may be traced between the higher and lower organized animals, bears an inverse ratio to their approximation to maturity.

All animals resemble each other at the earliest period of their development, which commences with the manifestation of the assimilative and fissiparous properties of the polygastric animalcule: the potential germ of the Mammal can be compared, in form and vital actions, with the Monad alone; and, at this period, unity of organization may be predicated of the two extremes of the Animal Kingdom. The germ of the Polype acquires more conspicuously the locomotive organs of the Monad, -the superficial vibratile cilia,-before it takes on its special radiated type. The Acalephe passes through both the Infusorial and Polype stages, and propagates by gemmation, as well as spontaneous fission, before it acquires its mature form and sexual organs. The fulness of the unity of organization which prevails through the Polypes and larval Acalephes, is diminished as the latter approach maturity and assume their special form.

The Bryozoa after simulating the higher Infusoria by their spheroid shape and active movements, due to well-developed zones or lobes of conspicuous vibratile cilia, mask their low molluscous character beneath the polype form. The Ascidian Mollusks typify more feebly and transiently the polype state in passing from that of the cercariform ciliated larva to the more special molluscous form. The Univalves and Bivalves obey the law of unity of organization in the spontaneous fissions of their amorlium, by which it gyrates in the ovum ; phous germ, and in its ciliated epithebut they proceed at once to assume the molluscous type without taking on that of the Polype; the Bivalve retaining the acephalous condition, the Univalve ascending in its development to the ac

Thus every animal in the course of its development represents some of the permanent forms of animals inferior to itself; but it does not successively repeat them all, nor acquire the organization of any of the inferior forms which it transitorily typifies.

If the foregoing extracts have

awakened curiosity in the reader, and sent him to Professor Owen's work, every page of which is compact with thought and knowledge, the purpose of these desultory remarks has been achieved.

G. H. L.

WE propose in theonths can be

in these papers to

spent in a field of travel comparatively new and unexplored. In the East, properly so called, there is nothing new. The Pyramids, the Avenue of Sphinxes, the First Cataract, the Heights of Lebanon, the Waters of Gennesareth, the Plains of Troy, the Minarets of Constantinople, the Golden Horn, are all as well known to many of the present generation as the Colosseum and the Rialto, the Bay of Naples and the Passes of the Alps, were to the last. These places, and dozens of others situated in countries where we have not an acre of ground, have been inspected, described, and sketched by every variety of tourist: by wealthy commoners, rich young peers, Oxford undergraduates, and fair ladies. But there is a country which, in addition to all the attractions that can be presented by magnificent mountain scenery and monuments of architectural skill and beauty, presents a wide field of reflection to all really interested in the greatness of England: a country as much behind the foremost of European states in civilization and progress, as she is a-head of the laggard ones: a country tenanted by rival races and opposing castes, where everything in nature is on a gigantic scale, and everything in social life is abhorrent to our own: where the problem of governing aliens in religion, language, and blood, has been quietly grappled with and triumphantly solved: where there will always be enough both to provoke criticism and to mitigate censure, and where a

perpetually crossing each other on

thousand interesting questions are

every topic that can arouse the philanthropist, engage the philosopher, stimulate the capitalist, and arrest the statesman.

We allude, of course, to the British dominions in India. It is not our intention to give a sketch of the present system of the Company's government,-formally to attack Manchester, or elaborately to defend Leadenhall-street; but we purpose quietly to show what objects of interest, what cities of note, what edifices of regal state or public worship, may be visited by any enterprising gentleman who has spare time on his hands, money in his pockets, and perhaps ennui at his heart. Our traveller, whose movements are henceforth to be entirely at our disposal, must be a young or middled-aged person, if possible with some stake in the country, and with a seat in Parliament, or one at least in prospect. He has seen the London season expire; he is tired of German watering-places, and does not intend to go to the moors, and, moreover, he has no objection to forego hunting for just one winter. With an earnest desire to have some fresh stories to recount at his club or his fireside, and to know whether there are other things in India besides cotton, curries, nabobs, and tigers, he places himself in the hands of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and starts on his Indian expedition. He should leave England in September or early in October, must submit to five weeks of what is called the Overland journey, and we will guarantee him that by

1856.]

the middle of March, or the commencement of April at latest, he shall be walking down Pall Mall with a fresh stock of ideas and a series of pleasant reminiscences whereof his philosophy had scarce even dreamt. The journey across France or Germany-to avoid the Bay of Biscay-over the Mediterranean, to the harbours and empty palaces of suppliant Alexandria; by the rail instead of the wretched boat of the Mahmoudie Canal; then up the Nile, through Cairo, with a glimpse of the Pyramids; over the Desert by a capital road studded with resting-houses; down the Red Sea, where a torrid summer reigns for ten months in the year; by the collection of cinders which forms the cantonment of Aden; across the Indian Ocean to the spicy breezes of an island which the Hindoos called Singhala Dwipa, the Arabs, Serendib, and we Ceylon; up the Bay of Bengal to the wellknown surf of Madras; right against the cooling breeze of the north-west monsoon, to the low, uncaptivating shores of the Hooghly River,-this journey, we say, is so well known by description, that we should no more think of giving an elaborate detail of its incidents previous to the main object of our sketch, than we should of prefacing a dissertation on the latest fashions or politics of Paris, by an account of the old road from Calais to the Barrière St. Denis. Our readers must imagine the independent traveller landed at one of those ample palaces the aggregate of which gives Calcutta its title. We must imagine him to have compared it with St. Petersburg, if he has ever been there, as excellent Heber had to have enjoyed his morning and evening ride or drive; to have visited its unrivalled mint, admired its more splendid shipping and extensive Fort, and to have partaken of the hospitality of its residents, dispensed with alacrity, and adorned by conversation where, if the sparkling of wit may be wanting, animated afterdinner discussion, good sense, and good taste, frequently reign predominant. We forbear to describe the metropolis of India, because it is eminently Anglo-Saxon, and conveys no sort of impression of the state of

93

things in the provinces, and we must beg our readers to discard all ideas about India as drawn from the Arabian Nights, which they will not be reminded of above once or twice in the whole of their tour. It was a pointed saying of Lord Hardinge on his arrival, that one must go back to Cairo to find the East.

We have selected for our tour those parts of India which may best be seen from Calcutta, taken as a starting point, because they contain monuments of equal interest with those of Central or Southern India; while, politically and financially, they are of far greater importance, having been the scene of warlike and social triumphs, and the nurseries of captains and statesmen who have variously subdued some of the stubborn opponents of our physical and moral advancement. The season-for it is the early or middle part of November-is the brightest and best of the Indian year. Every day the sun rises on a cloudless horizon, to be tempered by a cooling breeze sent southward over the plains from the hoary peaks of the Himalaya. The temperature, though warm in the middle of the day, is not such as to preclude out-door occupations under proper precaution, or to create languor. The air is dry and exhilarating; there is no prospect of rain, or serious interruption to the fine weather for three months; the nights are almost cold, and the whole tenour of the season is such as almost to realize the description of the happy regions :— Largior hic æther campos, et lumine vestit

Purpureo, solemque suum sua sidera

nôrunt.

With this pleasing prospect of enduring fair weather, such as England can never know, our traveller, under the direction of his host, finds that the preparations for his little tour of 2000 miles, though important, are not such as to entail a large outlay or a vast deal of trouble. A roomy carriage, sufficient to hold two people, but more comfortable if reserved for one, has been furnished by one of the two rival companies who now undertake to horse travellers from Calcutta to Meerut, a distance of 900 miles. In this vehicle he finds a place for his

the

luggage, his stores of tea and biscuit, his maps and note books, his blankets and cloaks, and by the simple contrivance of a couple of boards which bridge over the space between the front and back seats, he is enabled to lie down at full length during the night, and enjoy rest even more comfortably than he could do in a first-class railway carriage. But our Englishman has not picked up vernacular language of the East, the Hindostani-or Urdu, as it is correctly called-in the course of his week's stay at Calcutta, and consequently some interpreter to explain his wants and to obviate his difficulties is required on the road. Such a man may easily be found, for less than £r a month, in an active Mussulman, for it does not necessarily follow that a native servant who can speak English must be a rogue, and a Mussulman is preferable to a Hindoo when expedition is required, as a follower of the Prophet has fewer scruples, and is less fastidious in the preparation of meals, which must often be hurried. Time is a great element in travelling, and your Hindoo will spend two hours or so in the purchase and cooking of his morning repast.

Everything being now ready for a start, the boxes secured with cords, the pillows and blankets stuffed into the interior, the map of the road, and the book of Indian Travels, and the letters to divers functionaries being placed where they can readily be available,the Mussulman servant moreover having taken up his position on the roof of the carriage, where, protected from falling by an iron rail, he will sleep rolled up in a blanket, after the fashion of natives of the East and of hedgehogs everywhere ;-everything being provided for, we repeat, it is worth while to pause a little, and consider what, till within the last eight or ten years, were the universal modes of travelling in India,-what they still are in all places removed from the great lines of communication.

Till recently there were in India three modes of travelling from one place to another-some attended with inconvenience and worry, some with ease and comfort, all with delay. Most of our readers have

heard of the Indian tent, the Indian budgerow, and the Indian palanquin. In the cold season, a march under canvas, provided the traveller had a double set of tents and tent equipage, was pleasant enough; one set was sent on during the night, placed on bullock carts or elephants, under the charge of native servants. The Sahib, or gentleman, dined at his ease, and slept soundly till the note of the 'kokil' (wrongly termed the Indian nightingale) or the varied sounds of an Indian village, near which he is probably encamped, aroused him from his slumbers. Mounting his Arab or his dog-cart he proceeded in the clear cool breeze of the morning for the twelve, fourteen, or sixteen miles which formed his daily march. Arriving at his fresh camping ground, he found the table spread with as perfect regularity and precision, not to say elegance, as it ever was in his substantial house of brick. The fresh fish had been procured from a neighbouring tank or river. The eggs and rice had been bought at the nearest bazaar. The European stores had been carefully provided beforehand. The bread had been baked in a portable oven; the breakfast had been cooked in a fireplace hollowed out of the earth, with a celerity that even a Zouave could not surpass. The remainder of the day was spent in business or in field sports, according to the aim and scope of the journey;-one day was the image of that which preceded or that which came after it; and the camp life of the civilian, though perhaps 200 miles of ground was not covered within the month, renovated the constitution, diversified monotony and dispelled care.

Such a life was obviously better fitted for functionaries who wished to make the tour of their respective districts, and to see and inquire into local matters themselves, or for whole regiments exchanging one station for another, than for persons pressed for time, and obliged to make a journey from the shores of the Bay of Bengal to some station within sight of the hills. Again, the life in tents, though captivating and healthful from the month of November to the month of March, was most trying to the European