As noon approached, or rather as the clouds dispersed, the blue hazy sky extended beyond the ring of light, and while the day advanced, and the heavens grew more clear, the whole meteor gradually disappeared, the circle vanishing first, and then the imitative suns.  My companions assured me they had never before witnessed a similar exhibition during voyages in these seas; but more learned Thebans describe them as phenomena frequently witnessed in high latitudes, and have assigned them the designation of parhelia.  There was, during this solar panorama, a large and complete semicircle of haze, lighter in colour than the surrounding fog, resting on the horizon perpendicularly, like a rainbow, but this appearance my associates informed me was familiar to their sight.—­Tales of a Voyager in the Arctic Ocean.

* * * * *

THE ANECDOTE GALLERY.

* * * * *

BROILING STEAKS.

A Munchausen Story.

“Talking of broiling steaks—­when I was in Egypt we used to broil our beef-steaks on the locks—­no occasion for fire—­thermometer at 200—­hot as h-ll!  I have seen four thousand men at a time cooking for the whole army as much as twenty or thirty thousand pounds of steaks at a time, all hissing and frying at a time—­just about noon, of course, you know—­not a spark of fire!  Some of the soldiers who had been brought up as glass-blowers at Leith swore they never saw such heat.  I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff, and think of old England!  Ay! that’s the country, after all, where a man may think and say what he pleases!  But that sort of work did not last long, as you may suppose; their eyes were all fried out, ——­ me, in three or four weeks!  I had been ill in my bed, for I was attached to the 72nd regiment, seventeen hundred strong.  I had a party of seamen with me; but the ophthalmia made such ravages, that the whole regiment, colonel and all, went stone-blind—­all, except one corporal!  You may stare, gentlemen, but it’s very true.  Well, this corporal had a precious time of it:  he was obliged to lead out the whole regiment to water—­he led the way, and two or three took hold of the skirts of his jacket on each side; the skirts of these were seized again by as many more; and double the number to the last, and so all held on by one another, till they had all had a drink at the well; and, as the devil would have it, there was but one well among us all—­so this corporal used to water the regiment just as a groom waters his horses; and all spreading out, you know, just like the tail of a peacock.”—­“Of which the corporal was the rump,” interrupted the doctor.  The captain looked grave.  “You found it warm in that country?” inquired the surgeon.  “Warm!” exclaimed the captain; “I’ll tell you what, doctor, when you go where you have sent many a patient, and where, for that very reason, you certainly will go, I only hope,