Oh! what wonderful goods are exposed for sale in those streets! what
whimsical extravagances in those bazaars!

No horses, no carriages are ever seen in the town; nothing but people
on foot, or the comical little carts dragged along by the runners.
Some few Europeans straggling hither and thither, wanderers from the
ships in harbor; some Japanese (fortunately as yet but few in number)
dressed up in coats; other natives who content themselves with adding
to their national costume the pot hat, from which their long sleek
locks hang down; and all around, eager haggling, bargaining,--and
laughter.

In the bazaars every evening our mousmés make endless purchases; like
spoilt children they buy everything they fancy: toys, pins, ribbons,
flowers. And then they prettily offer each other presents, with
childish little smiles. For instance, Campanule buys for Chrysanthème
an ingeniously contrived lantern on which, set in motion by some
invisible machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame.
In return, Chrysanthème gives Campanule a magic fan, with paintings
that change at will from butterflies fluttering round cherry-blossoms,
to outlandish monsters pursuing each other across black clouds. Touki
offers Sikou a cardboard mask representing the bloated countenance of
Daï-Cok, god of wealth; and Sikou replies by a long crystal trumpet,
by means of which are produced the most extraordinary sounds, like a
turkey gobbling. Everything is uncouth, fantastical to excess,
grotesquely lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by
incomprehensible conceptions, which seem the work of distorted
imaginations.

In the fashionable tea-houses where we finish up our evenings, the