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The paths were narrow and filthy; and the only public buildings besides the convents were Manis and Mendongs; of these the former are square-roofed temples, containing rows of praying- cylinders placed close together, from four to six feet high, and gaudily painted; some are turned by hand, and others by water: the latter are walls ornamented with slabs of clay and mica slate, with "Om Mani Padmi om" well carved on them in two characters, and repeated ad infinitum.
"Now you shall see what you shall see." Peter shouldered his rifle, marched straight up to the gaudily attired mahout, looked him up and down admiringly, pointed at his handsome turban, smiling the while as if with satisfaction, and then tapped the gilded handle of the ankus the man carried, drawing back and looking at him again. "Well, you do look splendid," he said.
My trust in our strength as I had seen it six months before helped me to reassure her; but to change the subject, I turned to the penny-in-the-slot music machine inside, the biggest, most gaudily painted musical box I've ever seen. "Did the Boches ever try this?" I asked. "No, only once," she replied, brightening. "They had a mess in the next room, and never came in here."
That it was all a huge revelation to many who came and inquired who I might be, and whence I might have come, was quite evident. One fellow, dressed gaudily in expensive silks and satins probably borrowed came with pomp and pride; and disappointment was writ large upon his ugly face when he learned that I could not, or would not, speak with him.
At times we passed a woman struggling with her skirts, unsteadily tripping along in her high wooden shoes, looking exactly like the figures painted on screens, cowering under a gaudily daubed paper umbrella. Again, we passed a pagoda, where an old granite monster, squatting in the water, seemed to make a hideous, ferocious grimace at me. How large this Nagasaki is!
The sound seemed to shake the ground, the impact of the feet with the earth was heard despite the turmoil of the drums; the stamping vibrations were felt in the midst of the stir of the crowds, and now in the nearer approach the individual faces could be distinguished, wildly painted; the athletic figures, gaudily clad and barbarically decorated; the ball-sticks, held aloft in a sort of rhythmic vibration as if quivering for a chance at the ball; and fourscore wild young voices howled defiance at loco Town, whose youth in return howled its municipal pride, failing only with failing breath.
They paraded far out into the country, crossed to the opposite side of the river, wound themselves back and forth through the narrow streets until a late hour at night. At eleven o'clock just before we retired, we stood for some time watching the procession pass the hotel where we were stopping. It was a miserably ugly little image, gaudily decorated.
The platform, as well as the caves of the house, were surmounted by gaudily painted railings, and the genius of Hiram was exerted in the fabrication of divers urns and mouldings, that were scattered profusely around this part of their labors.
In another moment the room was empty, and the bride and groom were left side by side on the gaudily bedecked platform, to mix and partake of their first betel-nut together. Mechanically Noa picked the broken fragments of the nut from its brass cup, from another a syrah leaf smeared with lime, added a clove, a cardamom, and a scraping of mace, and handed it to his bride.
He had hardly time to become aware of this observation of his person when the gate itself was opened, and there appeared before him, in the moonlight, the bent and crooked figure of an aged negress. She was clad in a calamanco raiment, and was further adorned with a variety of gaudily colored trimmings, vastly suggestive of the tropical world of which she was an inhabitant.
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