commonly where it is most required, about
the internal and deep-seated parts. After
active exercise, the whole body is indeed
hotter by some tenths of a degree, or at most
by a whole degree; the many degrees of
increased heat felt at the surface indicate at
the same time no more than a change in the
balance of the circulation. Active exercise—
rapid riding on horseback, or brisk walking—
raises the temperature of the body; passive
exercise, however, even though in hot weather
it may be attended with perspiration, lowers
it. A slow walk, an amble on horseback, or
a ride in a carriage, invariably causes a
decrease of the whole heat of the body.

What is true of bodily, is true of mental
exercise. Original writing or study, or any
intellectual effort, raises the temperature of
the body even more decidedly than bodily
exertion. Doctor Davy never found his own
temperature raised beyond a hundred degrees
even in Barbadoes, except after the delivery
of certain chemical lectures; while the most
violent bodily exertion under a tropical sun
produced a result, decided enough indeed, but
not so striking. Again, as passive bodily
exercise lowers the heat of the body, so passive
mental exercise does just the same. After the
passive work of writing from a copy, or of
reading for amusement such light works as do
not exercise the powers of the mind, the heat
of the body is found invariably to have fallen.
Balance gained or lost in this way will be
soon recovered, for the temperature of the
body fluctuates with ease. We should add that,
while a light meal makes no difference, a full
meal, followed by drowsiness, reduces the
heat; which is reduced also by the use of
wine. If the use of wine at supper or after
dinner be at all in excess, the reduction of
heat by it is very marked; the temperature,
however, before breakfast next morning, by
way of compensation, rises considerably, as
all repentant topers know.

THE TRUMPETS OF DOOLKARNEIN.

IN Eastern history are two Iskenders or
Alexanders, who are sometimes confounded,
and both of whom are called Doolkarnein, or
the Two-Horned, in allusion to their
subjugation of East and West, horns being an
oriental symbol of power. One of these heroes
is Alexander of Macedon; the other, a
conqueror of more ancient time, who built the
marvellous series of ramparts on Mount
Caucasus, known in fable as the wall of Gog and
Magog; that is to say, of the people of the
North. It reached from the Euxine Sea to
the Caspian, where its flanks originated the
modern appellation of the Caspian Gates.
See among other passages in the same work,
the article, "Jedd Jagiong et Magiong," in
D'Herbelot's "Bibliothèque Orientale." The
story of the Trumpets, on which the present
poem is founded, is quoted by Major Price in
his Mohammedan History, from the
"Pecorone" of Ter Giovanni Fiorentino.

WITH awful walls, far glooming, that possess'd
    The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian fountains,
Doolkarnein, the dread lord of East and West,
    Shut up the northern nations in their mountains;
And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew,
    Trumpets he set—huge beyond dreams of wonder,
Craftily purposed—when his arms withdrew,
    To make him thought still housed there—like the thunder;
And so it was: for, when the winds blew right,
They woke the trumpets to their calls of might.

Unseen, but heard, their calls the trumpets blew,
    Ringing the granite rocks, their only bearers;
Till the long fear into religion grew,
    And never more those heights had human darers.
Dreadful Doolkarnein was an earthly god;
    His walls but shadow'd forth his mightier frowning:
Armies of giants at his bidding trod
    From realm to realm, king after king discrowning.
When thunder spoke, or when the earthquake stirr'd,
Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard.

But when the winters marr'd the mountain shelves,
    And softer changes came with vernal mornings,
Something had touch'd the trumpets' lofty selves,
    And less and less rang forth their sovereign warnings—
Fewer and feebler; as when silence spreads
    In plague-struck tents, where haughty chiefs, left dying.
Fail by degrees upon their angry beds,
    Till, one by one, ceases the last stern sighing.
One by one, thus, their breath the trumpets drew,
Till now no more the imperious music blew.

Is he then dead? Can great Doolkarnein die?
    Or can his endless hosts elsewhere be needed
Were the great spirits that blew his minstrelsy
    Phantoms, that faded as himself receded?
Or is he anger'd? Surely he still comes;
    This silence ushers the dread visitation;
Sudden will burst the torrent of his drums,
    And then will follow bloody desolation.
So did fear dream; though now, with not a sound
To scare good hope, summer had twice crept round.

Then gather'd in a band, with lifted eyes.
    The neighbours, and those silent heights ascended;
Giant, nor aught blasting their bold emprise,
    They met; though twice they halted, breath-suspended;
Once, at a coming like a god's in rage
    With thunderous leaps: but 't was the piled snow, falling;
And once, when in the woods, an oak, for age
    Fell dead, the silence with its groan appalling.
At last they came, where still in dread array,
As if they still might speak, the trumpets lay.

Unhurt they lay, like caverns above ground,
    The rifted rocks, for hands, about them clinging,
But, from their brazen gulfs, only a sound
    Of nestling came, to which the birds were singing:
Nests upon nests by thousands filled them all,
    Barring the winds out with their gentle forces;
Great was Doolkarnein, but his might was small
    Compar'd with Nature's least and gentlest courses.