simplicity so studied and exquisite that to our eyes they seem the
revelation of an unknown art, the subversion of all acquired notions
on form.

* * * * *

On turning a corner of a street, by good luck we meet our married
comrades of the _Triomphante_ and Jonquille, Touki-San and Campanule!
Bows and curtsies are exchanged by the mousmés, reciprocal
manifestations of joy at meeting; then, forming a compact band, we are
carried off by the ever-increasing crowd and continue our progress in
the direction of the temple.

The streets gradually ascend (the temples are always built on a
height); and by degrees as we mount up, there is added to the
brilliant fairyland of lanterns and costumes, yet another, ethereally
blue in the haze of distance; all Nagasaki, its pagodas, its
mountains, its still waters full of the rays of moonlight, seem to
rise up with us into the air. Slowly, step by step, one may say it
springs up around, enveloping in one great shimmering veil all the
foreground, with its dazzling red lights and many-colored streamers.

No doubt we are getting near, for here are the religious steps,
porticos and monsters hewn out of enormous blocks of granite. We now
have to climb a series of steps, almost earned by the surging crowd
ascending with us.

The temple court-yard; we have arrived.

This is the last and most astonishing scene in the evening's