In this land of pretty little trifles, this violent tempest is out of
all harmony; it seems as if its efforts were exaggerated and its music
too loud.

Towards evening the big dark clouds roll by so rapidly, that the
showers are of short duration and soon pass over. Then I attempt a
walk on the mountain above us, in the wet verdure: little pathways
lead up it, between thickets of camellias and bamboos.

Waiting till a shower is over, I take refuge in the courtyard of an
old temple half-way up the hill, buried in a wood of centennial trees
of gigantic branches; it is reached by granite steps, through strange
gateways, as deeply furrowed as the old Celtic dolmens. The trees
have also invaded this yard; the daylight is overcast with a greenish
tint, and the drenching rain that pours down in torrents, is full of
torn-up leaves and moss. Old granite monsters, of unknown shapes, are
seated in the corners, and grimace with smiling ferocity; their faces
are full of indefinable mystery that makes me shudder amid the moaning
music of the wind, in the gloomy shadows of the clouds and branches.

They could not have resembled the Japanese of our day, the men who had
thus conceived these ancient temples, who built them everywhere, and
filled the country with them, even in its most solitary nooks.

* * * * *

An hour later, in the twilight of that stormy day, on the same
mountain, I chanced upon a clump of trees somewhat similar to oaks in
appearance; they, too, have been twisted by the tempest, and the tufts