grandeur: here are caverns,
abrupt rocks, a torrent, a cascade, islands. The trees, dwarfed by a
Japanese process of which we have not the secret, have tiny little
leaves on their decrepit and knotty branches. A pervading hue of the
mossy green of antiquity harmonizes all this medley, which is
undoubtedly centuries old.

Families of gold-fish swim round and round in the clear water, and
tiny tortoises (_jumpers_ probably) sleep upon the granite islands
which are of the same color as their own gray shell.

There are even blue dragon-flies which have ventured to descend,
heaven knows from whence, and alight with quivering wings upon the
miniature water-lilies.

Our friends the bonzes, notwithstanding an unctuousness of manner
thoroughly ecclesiastical, are very ready to laugh,--a simple,
pleased, childish laughter; plump, chubby, shaven and shorn, they
dearly love our French liqueurs and know how to take a joke.

We talk first of one thing and then another. To the tranquil music of
their little cascade, I launch out before them with phrases of the
most erudite Japanese, I try the effect of a few tenses of verbs:
_desideratives, concessives, hypothetics in ba_. Whilst they chat they
dispatch the affairs of the church, the order of services sealed with
complicated seals for inferior pagodas situated in the neighborhood;
or trace little prayers with a cunning paint-brush as medical remedies
to be swallowed as pills by invalids at a distance. With their white
and dimpled hands they play with a fan as cleverly as any woman, and
when we have tasted different native drinks flavored with essences of
flowers, they bring up as a finish a battle of _Benedictine_ or
_Chartreuse_, for they appreciate the liqueurs composed by their
Western colleagues.

When they come on board to return our visits, they by no means disdain
to fasten their great round spectacles on their flat noses in order to
inspect the profane drawings in our illustrated papers, the _Vie
Parisienne_ for instance. And it is even with a certain complacency
that they let their fingers linger upon the pictures which represent
the ladies.

The religious ceremonies in their great temple are magnificent, and to
one of these we are now invited. At the sound of the gong they make
their entrance before the idols with a stately ritual; twenty or
thirty priests officiate in gala costumes, with genuflections,
clapping of hands and movements to and fro, which look like the