224 ON THE VARIETIES OF VEGETABLE FOOD. 
that animals which subsist on animal food are obliged^ by the 
very nature of their food to take a large amount of exercise; 
otherwise their food would not be suitable to them. It is won¬ 
derful how soon animal food is digested by creatures who live 
almost entirrdy upon it. Sir William Alexander, in his “Tra¬ 
vels in Kaffirland,” mentions the case of a Kaffir who came into 
the kraal one evening, nearly famished. He had been seven or 
eight days without food, having walked for a long distance in 
search of something to subsist upon. Sir William had often 
heard that the natives, under such circumstances, would think 
nothing of eating a sheep—not a Leicester, however, gentle¬ 
men, but one of the colonial sheep; and, though rather fright¬ 
ened at the experiment, which was contrary to all his previous 
notions, he provided a sheep for this hungry native. The man 
commenced eating ; he did not leave off until he had eaten 
three-quarters of the animal; and the next day it was discovered 
that the consumer, instead of suffering any injury, had reco¬ 
vered, and was swelled out to his proper proportions. Instead 
of appearing a skeleton, he now appeared a healthy man, with 
muscles ready for another week’s exercise. Such is the effect 
produced by the operation of that law which I have been de¬ 
scribing to you. When parties who have gone such a length 
of time without food obtain the command of what is necessary 
for them, it is taken into the animal system, and is employed in 
replenishing those muscles which were previously exhausted. 
And let me tell you, that any man in this country who is com¬ 
pelled to labour hard must live to a great extent upon animal 
food, or upon food that contains the flesh-making principle; be¬ 
cause all waste requires to be replaced from that source. In 
like manner, a person who eats a large amount of animal food 
must take a large amount of exercise; otherwise he will be 
thrown into a fever, which is the only other way of correcting 
the consumption of too great a supply of animal food. 
Now, a great deal may be deduced from what I have stated. 
In the first place, it proves that, unless you have a proper amount 
of the flesh-making principle in food, what you give them will not 
answer the end for which it is given. If a mother gave her 
child nothing but arrowroot, which contains no nitrogen at all, 
and no bone earth, that child could not increase in size; or 
if it did, one portion of its body must grow by absorbing the 
other. If the amount of nitrogenous food were too small, the 
child would grow up a little Tom Thumb : it is impossible that 
it should grow up well, not having that which is necessary to 
produce muscles and bones in due proportion. Allow me to say, 
gentlemen, that vegetable food varies very greatly indeed as 
respects the relative amount of flesh-producing principle. The 
