ad. Moreover, they are
very funny, thus drawn up in line. In speaking of them, we say: "Our
little dancing dogs," and in truth they are singularly like them.

This great Nagasaki is the same from one end to another, with its
numberless petroleum lamps burning, its many-colored lanterns
flickering, and innumerable panting djins. Always the same narrow
streets, lined on each side with the same low houses, built in paper
and wood. Always the same shops, without glass windows, open to all
the winds, equally rudimentary whatever may be sold or made in them;
whether they display the finest gold lacquer ware, the most marvelous
china jars, or old worn-out pots and pans, dried fish, and ragged
frippery. All the salesmen are seated on the ground in the midst of
their valuable or trumpery merchandise, their legs bared nearly to the
waist. And all kinds of queer little trades are carried on under the
public gaze, by strangely primitive means, by workmen of the most
ingenuous type.

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 mousmes 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 Chrysantheme
an ingeniously contrived lantern on which, set in motion by some
invisible machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame.
In return, Chrysantheme 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
Dai-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, fanta