"Better! why I hear that she is now in a fit."

"I mean worse," said Nadir, "for the present; but she will be better hereafter."

"Heaven and earth! how you answer me! Are these fits the effects of her disorder?"

"Yes!"

"Then you think she is far gone?

"Very far gone indeed," returned Nadir.

You do not," said Mirza, "deem her incurable ?"

"No? I have a medicine at home that I think will cure her!"

"Then," cried Mirza, "fly for it instantly!"

"I cannot," continued Nadir, "fly, nor can I very speedily produce it: I must first see what turn her disorder has taken, as her favourite maid has just whispered me, that she has in some degree recovered from her fit."

"Be sure you prescribe that medicine"

"I will, if I should deem it prudent."

"And," continued Mirza, " see her take it yourself; for she threw the last prescription out of the window."

"She will not throw my medicine out of the window, I'll engage."

66

"No!" said Lesbia, who just entered, my lady has too great a regard for whatsoever comes from the house of the sage Nadir; for she says, oh noble Mirza! that he is not only the tenderest, the most sagacious, but the very best physician that she ever had in her life; and that she will follow his advice in every thing; and has no doubt but, through his scientific influence, her cure will soon be complete."

"This," said Mirza, "is indeed surprizing!"

"Not at all, oh Mirza!" replied Nadir: "when a patient is properly treated, these turns are common. This young lady seems so perfectly to have recovered her senses, that I will only look in upon her to take my leave for the present. Tamas the

A SECT has lately been discovered in Silesia, which, though they have existed upwards of a century, have not attracted the public attention till lately. This concealment has been chiefly occasioned by their peculiar and fundamental maxims, which enjoin them to conform outwardly to the rites and ceremonies of other sects, when required to do so by considerations of personal ease and safety; to abstain from attempting to make any converts from the followers of a different faith, and to communicate their tenets only in the way of education, to their own children, or to infants consigned by poverty or death of natural protectors to their care. In their modes of worship they interpret strictly that injunction in scripture, When you pray, go into your closets, and pray in secret, &c. Worship, according to them, is acceptable, when offered in sincerity, by whomsoever and in whatsoever manner offered, but the precept of Christ, rightly understood, enjoins solitary and secret prayer. Accordingly, they abjure all assemblies and churches for religious worship. Their forms of devotion are a set of hymns in Latin, composed by their founder, in which the topics mentioned in the Lord's prayer are strictly adhered to; but these hymns

are regarded by them as convenient, but not obligatory, and they hold themselves at liberty to follow any other mode, or merely to muse in silence, provided the topics of their meditation are those included in the Lord's prayer, and provided it be done in secret. This method including their whole practical religion, they, of course, reject all festivals,solemn days, consecrated places, and all rites, including baptism and the eucharist. The latter they consider themselves as celebrating whenever they eat and drink with recollections of Christ, this being, according to them, the true meaning of the command, Do this in remembrance of me. In their dress, language, manners, and social conduct, they conform to the prevailing customs of their country. Their system enjoins no forms of burial, marriage, &c., peculiar to themselves. These are points indifferent in themselves, and duty prescribes to conform to custom, because it is the custom, and because a departure from it would only occasion trouble and suspicion. In their moral and social conduct they are ge nerally distinguished by good sense, industry, and benevolence. Their belief on doctrinal points, such as the nature of Christ, and the state of souls after death, is not well understood, but they represent these points as disconnected with any practical consequences: as mere questions in history and metaphysics, about which a man is concerned to enquire for the sake of truth, but not for the sake of any mode of external conduct to be engrafted on it. Good behaviour in private life, and a sincere belief, whatever its objects be, they deem sufficient to insure the approbation of the Deity.

For the Literary Magazine.

ON THE STOMACH OF THE CAMEL.

MR. EVERARD HOME lately laid before the Royal Society of Lon

don, observations on the camel's stomach, respecting the water it contains, and the reservoirs in which that fluid is enclosed.

The camel, the subject of these observations, was a female brought from Arabia; it was 28 years old, and said to have been 20 years in England. The animal was worn out, and in a state of great debility, before it came into the hands of the college of surgeons, and they put an end to its miseries by means of a narrow double-edged poniard passed in between the skull and first vertebræ of the neck: in this way the medulla oblongata was divided, and the animal instantaneously deprived of sensibility.

In the common mode of pithing an animal, the medulla spinalis only is cut through, and the head remains alive, which renders it the most cruel mode of killing an animal that could be invented.

The stomachs of this animal were the first things examined, and, on measuring the capacities of these different reservoirs in the dead body, the anterior cells of the first stomach were found capable of containing one quart of water, when poured into them. The posterior cells, three quarts. One of the largest cells held two ounces and a half, and the second stomach four quarts. This is much short of what those cavities can contain in the living animal, since there are large muscles covering the bottom of the cellular structure, to force out the water, which must have been contracted immediately after death, and by that means had diminished the cavities. The camel, when it drinks, conducts the water in a pure state into the second stomach; part of it is retained there, and the rest runs over into the cellular structure of the first, acquiring a yellow colour. That the second stomach in the camel contained water, had been generally asserted; but by what means the water was kept separate from the food had never been explained, nor had any other part been discovered by which the common offices of a

second stomach could be performed. To this Mr. Hunter did not give credit, but considered the second stomach of the camel to correspond in its use with that of other ruminants. This difference of opinion led Mr. Home to examine accurately the camel's stomach, and also the stomachs of those ruminants which have horns, in order to determine the peculiar offices belonging to their different cavities.

The best mode of conducting this enquiry is to describe the different stomachs of the bullock, and then those of the camel, and afterwards to point out the peculiarities by which this animal is enabled to go a longer time without drink than others, and thereby fitted to live in those sandy deserts of which it is the natural inhabitant.

When the first stomach of the bullock is laid open, and the solid contents removed, the cavity appears to be made up of two large compartments, separated from each other by two transverse bands of considerable thickness, and the second stomach forms a pouch or lesser compartment, on the anterior part of it, somewhat to the right of the esophagus, so that the first and second stomach are both included in one general cavity, and lined with a cuticle. The esophagus appears to open into the first stomach, but on each side of its termination there is a muscular ridge, projecting from the coats of the first stomach, so as to form a channel into the second. These muscular bands are continued on to the orifice of the third stomach, in which they are lost. The food can readily pass from the esophagus, either into the general cavity of the first stomach or into the second, which last is peculiarly fitted by its situation, and the muscular power of its coats, both to throw up its contents into the mouth, and to receive a supply from the general cavity of the first stomach, at the will of the animal. The second stomach contains the same food as the first, only more moist; It must therefore be considered as a

shelf from which the food may be regurgitated along the canal, continued from the oesophagus. There is indeed no other mode by which this can be effected, since it is hardly possible for the animal to separate small portions from the surface of the mass of dry food in the first stomach, and force it up into the mouth. It is also ascertained that water is received into the second stomach while the animal is drinking, and is thus enabled to have its contents always in a proper state of moisture to admit of its being readily thrown up into the mouth for rumination, which seems to be the true office of this stomach, and not to receive the food after that process has been gone through.

When the food is swallowed the second time, the orifice of the third stomach is brought forward by the muscular bands which terminate in it, so as to oppose the end of the esophagus, and receive the morsel without the smallest risk of its dropping into the second stomach. The third stomach of the bullock is a cavity, in the form of a crescent, containing 24 septa, 7 inches broad; about 23, 4 inches broad; and about 48 of 14 inch at their broadest part. These are thus arranged : broad one, with one of the narrowest next it; then a narrow one, with one of the narrowest next it; then a broad one and so on.

one

The septa

are thin membranes, and have their origin in the orifice leading from the esophagus, so that whatever passes into the cavity must fall between these septa, and describe three-fourths of a circle, before it can arrive at the orifice leading to the true stomach, which is so near the other, that the distance between them does not exceed three inches: and therefore the direct line from the termination of the esophagus to the orifice of the fourth stomach is only of that length. While the young calf is fed on milk, that liquor, which does not require to be ruminated, is conveyed directly to the fourth stomach, not passing through the plica of the third; and after

wards the solid food is directed into that cavity, by the plice separated from each other. The third stomach opens into the fourth by a projecting valvular orifice, and the cuticular lining terminates exactly on the edge of this valve, covering only that half of it which belongs to the third. The fourth or true di

gesting stomach is about 2 feet 9 inches long; its internal membrane has 18 plica, beginning at its orifice, and continued down, increasing to a great degree its internal surface: beyond these the internal membrane is thrown into ruge which follow a very serpentine direction, and close to the pylorus there is a glandular projection, one end of which is op posed to the orifice, and closes it up, when in a collapsed state.

The camel's stomach anteriorly forms one large bag, but when laid open is forced to be divided into two compartments on its posterior part, by a strong ridge which passes down from the right side of the orifice of the oesophagus in a longitudinal direction. On the left side of the termination of the oesophagus, a broad muscular band has its origin, from the coats of the first stomach, and passes down in the form of a solid parallel to the great ridge, till it enters the orifice of the second stomach. This band on one side, and the great ridge on the other, form a canal, which leads from the œsophagus down to the cellular structure in the lower part of the first stomach. The orifice of the second stomach, when this muscle is not in action, is nearly shut, and at right angles to the side of the first. Its cavity is a pendulous bag with rows of cells, above which, between them and the muscle which passes along the upper part of the stomach, is a smooth surface extending from the orifice of this stomach to the termination of the third. Hence it is evident that the second stomach neither receives the solid food in the first instance as the bullock, nor does it afterwards pass into its cavity or cellular structure. The food first passes into the general cavity of the first

stomach, and that portion of it which lies in the recess immediately below the entrance of the œsophagus under which the cells are situated, is kept moist, and is readily returned into the mouth, so that the cellular portion of the first stomach in the camel performs the same office as the second in the ruminants with horns. While the camel is drinking, the action of the muscular band opens the orifice of the second stomach, at the same time that it directs the water into it; and when the cells of that cavity are full, the rest runs off into the cellular struc ture of the first stomach immediately below, and afterwards into the general cavity: it seems that camels, when accustomed to go long journeys, in which they are kept without water, acquire the power of dilating the cells, so as to make make them contain a more than ordinary quantity as a supply for their journey. When the cud has been chewed, it has to pass along the upper part of the second stomach before it can reach the third; which is thus managed: at the time that the cud is to pass from the mouth, the muscular band contracts with so much force, that it not only opens the orifice of the second stomach, but acting on the mouth of the third, brings it forwards into the second, by which means the muscular ridges that separate the rows of cells are brought close together, so as to exclude these cavities from the canal, through which the end passes. It is this beautiful and very curious mechanism which forms the peculiar character of the stomach of the camel, dromedary, and lama, fitting them to live in the sandy deserts, where the supplies of water are so precarious.

In the bullock are three stomachs for the preparation of food, and one for digestion. In the camel there is one stomach fitted to answer the

purposes of two of the bullock; a second is employed as a reservoir for water, having nothing to do with the preparation of the food; a third is so small and simple in its struc