tion from
the ocean, he exclaims:--

"But say, ye sages, who can weigh the cause,
And trace the secret springs of Nature's laws;
Say why the wave, of bitter brine erewhile,
Should be the bosom of the deep recoil,
Robbed of its salt, and from the cloud distil,
Sweet as the waters of the limpid rill?"

(Book v.)

But the truth appears to be that the torrent which descends from a
water-spout, is but the condensed accumulation of its own vapour, and,
though in the hollow of the lower cone which rests upon the surface of
the sea, salt water may possibly ascend in the partial vacuum caused by
revolution; or spray may be caught up and collected by the wind, still
these cannot be raised by it beyond a very limited height, and what
Camoens saw descend was, as he truly says, the sweet water distilled
from the cloud.]

A curious phenomenon, to which the name of "anthelia" has been given,
and which may probably have suggested to the early painters the idea of
the glory surrounding the heads of beatified saints, is to be seen in
singular beauty, at early morning, in Ceylon. When the light is intense,
and the shadows proportionally dark--when the sun is near the horizon,
and the shadow of a person walking is thrown on the dewy grass--each
particle of dew furnishes a double reflection from its concave and
convex surfaces; and to the spectator his own figure, but more
particularly the head, appears surrounded by a halo as vivid as if
radiated from diamonds.[1] The Buddhists may possibly have taken from
this beautiful object their idea of the _agni_ or emblem of the sun,
with which the head of Buddha is surmounted. But unable to express a
_halo_ in sculpture, they concentrated it into a _flame_.

[Footnote 1: SCORESBY describes the occurrence of a similar phenomenon
in the Arctic Seas in July, 1813, the luminous circle being produced on
the particles of fog which rested on the calm water. "The lower part of
the circle descended beneath my feet to the side of the ship, and
although it could not be a hundred feet from the eye, it was perfect,
and the colours distinct. The centre of the coloured circle was
distinguished by my own shadow, the head of which, enveloped by a halo,
was most conspicuously pourtrayed. The halo or glory evidently impressed
on the fog, but the figure appeared to be a shadow on the water; the
different parts became obscure in proportion to their remoteness from
the head, so that the lower extremi