They soon arrived and took their places. Kioto lay before them, with its countless low but elegant houses, encircling the vast park of the Dairi,--a lake of verdure from which rose here and there, like an islet, a broad and magnificent roof. The eye could readily follow the clear line traced around the park by the walls. To the south of the city a river, the Yedogava, glistened in the sun. The plain, rich and well cultivated, stretched beyond. Another watercourse, the Wild Goose River, flows through the heart of the town, near the fortress of Nisio-Nosiro, which rears its lofty ramparts and its square tower, crowned by a roof with upturned edges. Behind the city lay a semicircle of high hills covered with vegetation and with temples of every sort, rising one above the other on the slopes, scaling them, and half hidden in foliage and flowers. The nobles pointed out to one another the temple of Iasacca, or the Eight Escarpments; the tower of To-Tse, with its five series of airy roofs; the chapel of Guihon, containing nothing but a round metal mirror, and surrounded by a vast number of pretty houses, to which people repair for tea and saki; then, lower down, nearer the plain, on the road that loads to Fusimi, the colossal pagoda of Daibouds, very lofty, very splendid, and containing within its gardens the temple of the Thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three Idols,--a very long and narrow building. The party went into ecstasies over the beauty of the situation. They delighted to lose their way in fancy in the complicated network formed by the city streets, filled with a brilliant throng, the enclosures and the courtyards, which from that height seemed like open boxes. With a single glance they traversed all Kioto; beside the river they saw a large open space, surrounded by a palisade, that was the parade-ground of the Knights of Heaven, some of whom were now galloping about the enclosure, their embroidered robes, their lances, and helmets flashing in the sun. The dark, green mountains stood out in bold relief against the clear blue sky; some more distant peaks were violet hued; the atmosphere was so pure that the little city of Yodo was plainly visible, joined to Kioto by the long ribbon-like road crossing the golden fields. The Kisaki rose. "Let us be off!" she cried. "We must not linger here too long; we must drink, higher up, the water of the cascade of Otooua, which gives prudence and wisdom,--so the bonzes claim." "Is there no fountain whose water has the power to make men light-hearted and careless?" said Simabara; "I would rather wet my lips in that." "I don't see what you would gain," said a princess, laughing; "if there be such a fountain, you have most certainly tasted its waters." "If there were one which made us forget life, and believe in a dream without awaking," said the Prince of Nagato, "I would drink to intoxication of it."