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Nowhere in the world—not even in Moscow, that city of domes—can one see such a collection of pagodas, cupolas, kiosks, and turrets as grace the roofs of our office buildings! Architects evidently look upon such adornments as compensations! The more hideous the structure, the finer its dome!
Beautiful quays, broad streets lined with shade trees, churches, barracks, theaters, hospitals, hotels, and shops with great show windows take one back in thought to the European capitals; and as the elaborately decorated pagodas are not near to the Christian churches, and, as there are not many more Chinese than English people in the streets, one can almost forget that he is within the confines of China and a tropical land.
None of them ever saw these gigantic palms, sumptuous palaces and pagodas covered with gold. But on their poor graves grow violets and lilies of the valley, and in the spring evenings nightingales sing to them in the old birch-trees. No nightingales ever sing for me, either in the neighboring groves, or in my own heart. The latter least of all. Let us stroll along this wall of reddish stone.
From our veranda we have a bewildering bird's-eye view of Nagasaki, of its streets, its junks, and its great pagodas, which, at certain hours, is illuminated at our feet like some scene in fairyland. Regarded as a mere outline, little Chrysantheme has been seen everywhere and by everybody.
The circuit of this great city is twenty-four miles round the walls, within which are several hills. The ordinary dwellings are of earthen walls, and sufficiently mean, but the three palaces of the tyrant brothers, and the pagodas or idol temples, are built of fine marble, cemented with lime.
And around the lake are hills, tall and broken as these of the Bosphorus; and seen from the water the hills are masses of ivy and emerald woods thickly sprinkled with old fortresses and temples, and seven-roofed red pagodas, each the home of a great gold-decked Buddha, with lesser Buddhas in family.
It's like those fanciful Japanese prints, where the snow on the mountain looks like sugar, and the gilt on the pagodas is like gilt on gingerbread. It looks just like a little pagan temple." "Yes," said Father Brown. "Let's have a look at the god." And with an agility hardly to be expected of him, he hopped up on to the raised platform.
From this point, the view over the plains below commanded a space of hundreds of miles. In the distance the red pagodas, white temple-gables and castle towers of Kioto were visible. Inside the cave was a banqueting hall large enough to seat one hundred persons.
"One of their pagodas," answered Lihoa, "and down there is the school in which one of my nephews is being instructed in the learning of the West. The white-faced women with the long veils brought him up because my sister exposed him when a baby.
D'Albert also mentions a chapel in the Fort, the churches of the Jesuits and the Capucins, and some miserable pagodas belonging to the Hindus, who, owing to the necessity of employing them as clerks and servants, were allowed the exercise of their religion. In his time the Europeans numbered about 500.
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