Families of goldfish 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 shells.

There are even blue dragon-flies which have ventured to descend, heaven
knows 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'. While they chant they
despatch 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 like 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 bottle 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