nd us, in the lit-up and wide-open temple, the bonzes sit,
immovable embodiments of doctrine, in the glittering sanctuary
inhabited by divinities, chimeras and symbols. The crowd, monotonously
droning its mingled prayers and laughter, presses around them, sowing
its alms broadcast; with a continuous jingle, the money rolls on the
ground into the precincts reserved to the priests, where the white
mats entirely disappear under the mass of many-sized coins accumulated
there as after a deluge of silver and bronze.

We, however, feel thoroughly at sea in the midst of this festivity; we
look on, we laugh like the rest, we make foolish and senseless remarks
in a language insufficiently learned, and which this evening, I know
not why, we can hardly understand. Notwithstanding the night breeze,
we find it very hot under our awning, and we absorb quantities of
funny-looking water-ices, served in cups, which taste like scented
frost, or rather like flowers steeped in snow. Our mousmes order for
themselves great bowls of candied beans mixed with hail,--real
hail-stones such as we would pick up after a hail-storm in March.

Glou! glou! glou! the crystal trumpets slowly repeat their notes, the
powerful sonority of which has a labored and smothered sound, as
though they came from under water; they mingle with the jingling of
rattles and the noise of castanets. We also have the impression of
being carried away in the irresistible swing of this incomprehensible
gayety, composed in proportions we can scarcely measure, of elements
mystic, puerile and even ghastly. A sort of religious terror is
diffused by the hidden idols divined in the temple behind us; by the
mumbled prayers, confusedly heard; above all, by the horrible heads in
lacquered wood, representing foxes, which, as they pass, hide human
faces,--hideous livid masks.

In the gardens and outbuildings of the temple the most inconceivable
mountebanks have taken up their quarters, their black streamers,
painted with white letters, looking like funereal trappings as they
float in the wind from the top of their tall flagstaffs. Hither we
turn out steps, as soon as our mousmes have ended their orisons and
bestowed their alms.

In one of the booths a man stretched on a table, flat on his back, is
alone on the stage; puppets of almost human size, with horribly
grinning masks, spring out of his body; they speak, gesticulate, then
fall back like empty rags; with a sudden spring, they st