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22 - Around The World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne · Classic Adventure Books Library

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  Chapter twenty two, in which Passepartou finds out that even at the antipodes,
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  it is convenient to have some money in one's pocket. The carnatic setting sail
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  from Hong Kong at half past six on the seventh of November, directed her
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  course at full steam towards Japan. She carried a large cargo in a well
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  filled cabin of passengers. Two state rooms in the rear were, however,
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  unoccupied, those which had been engaged by Phileas Fogg. The next day,
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  a passenger with a half stupefied eye, staggering gait, and disordered hair was
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  seen to emerge from the second cabin and to totter to a seat on deck.
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  It was past Partou, and what had happened to him was as follows.
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  Shortly after Fix left the opium den, two waiters had lifted the unconscious
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  passepartout and had carried him to the bed reserved for the smokers. Three hours
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  later. Pursued even in his dreams by a fixed idea, the poor fellow
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  awoke and struggled against the stupefying influence of their narcotic The thought of a duty
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  unfulfilled shook off his torpor, and he hurried from the abode of drunkenness,
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  staggering and holding himself up by keeping against the walls, falling down and creeping
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  up again, and irresistibly, impelled by a kind of instinct, he kept
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  crying out the Carnatic, the Carnatic. The steamer lay puffing alongside the quay.
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  On the point of starting. Passepartout had but a few steps to go,
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  and, rushing upon the plank, he crossed it and fell unconscious on
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  the deck. Just as the Carnatic was moving off. Several sailors, who
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  were evidently accustomed to this sort of scene, carried the poor Frenchman down into
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  the second cabin, and Passepartout did not wake until they were one one hundred
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  and fifty miles away from China. Thus he found himself the next morning on
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  the deck of the Carnatic, and eagerly inhaling the exhilarating sea breeze. The
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  pure air sobered him. He began to collect his sense, which he found
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  a difficult task, But at last he recalled the events of the evening before
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  Fix's revelation and the Opium house. It is evident, said he to himself,
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  that I have been abominably drunk. What will mister Fogg say? At
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  least I have not missed the steamer, which is the most important thing.
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  Then, as Fix occurred to him. As for that rascal, I hope
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  we are well rid of him, and that he has not dared as he
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  proposed to follow us on board the Carnatic, A detective on the track of
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  mister Fogg accused of robbing the Bank of England Pshaw. Mister Falk is no
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  more a robber than I am a murderer? Should he divulge Fix's real errand
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  to his master? Would it do to tell the part the detective was playing?
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  Would it not be better to wait until mister Fogg reached London again and
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  then impart to him that an agent of the Metropolitan Police had been following him
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  round the world and have a good laugh over it. No doubt, at
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  least it was worth considering. The first thing to do was to find mister
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  Fogg and apologize for his singular behavior. Passparteu got up and proceeded as well
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  as he could with the rolling of the steamer to the after deck. He
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  saw no one who resembled either his master or Aouda good muttered, He Aouda
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  has not got up yet, and mister Fogg has probably found some partners.
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  At whist he descended to the saloon. Mister Fogg was not there. Passepartout
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  had, only, however, to ask the purser the number of his master's
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  stateroom. The purser reply that he did not know any passenger by the name
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  of Fog. I beg your pardon, said Passepartout, persistently. He is
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  a tall gentleman, quiet, not very talkative, and has with him a
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  young lady. There is no young lady on board, interrupted the purser.
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  Here is a list of the passengers. You may see for yourself. Passepartout
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  scanned the list, but his master's name was not upon it. All.
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  At once an idea struck him. Ah am I on the Carnatic. Yes,
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  on the way to Yokohama. Certainly, Passepartout had for an instant feared
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  that he was on the wrong boat. But though he was really on the
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  Carnatic, his master was not there. He fell thunderstruck on a seat.
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  He saw it all now. He remembered that the time of sailing had been
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  changed, that he should have informed his master of that fact, and that
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  he had not done so. It was his fault then, that mister Fogg
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  and Aouda had missed the steamer. Yes, but it was still more the
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  fault of the traitor, who, in order to separate him from his master
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  and attained the latter at Hong Kong, had inveigled him into getting drunk.
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  He now saw the detective's trick, and at this moment mister Fogg was certainly
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  ruined. His bet was lost, and he himself perhaps arrested and imprisoned.
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  At this thought, Passepartout tore his hair. Ah, if fix ever came
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  within his reach, what a settling of accounts there would be. After his
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  first depression, Passepartout became calmer and began to study his situation. It was
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  certainly not an enviable one. He found himself on the way to Japan.
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  And what should he do when he got there? His pocket was empty.
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  He had not a solitary shilling, not so much as a penny. His
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  passage had fortunately been paid for in advance, and he had five or six
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  days in which to decide upon his future course. He fell to at meals
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  with an appetite and ate for mister fogg Aouda and himself. He helped himself
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  as generously as if Japan were a desert where nothing to eat was to be
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  looked for. At dawn on the thirteenth, the Carnatic entered the port of
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  Yokohama. This is an important port of call in the Pacific, where all
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  the mail steamers and those carrying passengers between North America, China, Japan,
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  and the Oriental Islands put in. It is situated in the Bay of Yedo,
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  and at but a short distance from that second capital of the Japanese Empire
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  and the residents of the Tycoon, the civil Emperor before the Mikado, the
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  Spiritual Emperor, absorbed his office in his own. The Carnatic, anchored at
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  the quay near the custom house, in the midst of a crowd of ships
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  bearing the flags of all nations, passepartout went timidly ashore on this so curious
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  territory of the sons of the Sun. He had nothing better to do than
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  taking chance for his guide to wander aimlessly through the streets of Yokohama. He
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  found himself at first in a thoroughly European quarter, the houses having low fronts
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  and being adorned with verandas beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles. This
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  quarter occupied with its streets, squares, docks and warehouses all the space between
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  the promontory of the treaty and the river. Here, as at Hong Kong
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  and Calcutta, were mixed crowds of all races, Americans and English, Chinamen
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  and Dutchmen, mostly merchants ready to buy or sell anything. The Frenchman felt
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  himself as much alone among them as if he had dropped down in the midst
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  of Hottentots. He had at least one resource to call off the French and
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  English consuls at Yokohama for assistance, but he shrank from telling the story of
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  his adventures, intimately connected as it was with that of his master, and
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  before doing so he determined to exhaust all other means of aid, as chance
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  did not favor him. In the European quarter, he penetrated that inhabited by
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  the native Japanese, determined, if necessary, to push on to Yeddo.
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  The Japanese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the goddess of the sea,
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  who was worshiped on the islands. Round About there passepartout beheld beautiful fir
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  and cedar groves, sacred gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in
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  the midst of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar trees. Holy
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  retreats were sheltered Buddhist priests and sectories of Confucius, and interminable streets where a
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  perfect harvest of rose, tinted and red cheeked children who looked as if they
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  had been cut out of Japanese screens, and who were playing in the midst
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  of short legged poodles and yellowish cats might have been gathered. The streets were
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  crowded with people. Priests were passing in processions, beating their dreary tambourines.
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  Police and custom house officers with pointed hats encrusted with lock and carrying two sabers
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  hung to their waists, Soldiers clad in blue cotton with white stripes and bearing
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  guns, the Mikado's guards enveloped in silken doubles, hauberks and coats of mail,
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  and numbers of military folk of all ranks for the military profession is as
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  much respected in Japan as it is despised in China, went hither and thither
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  in groups and pairs. Passepartouts saw too begging friars, long robed pilgrims and
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  simple civilians with their warped and jet black hair, big head, long busts,
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  slender legs, short stature, and complexions varying from copper color to a
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  dead white, but never yellow. Like the Chinese from whom the Japanese widely
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  differ, he did not fail to observe the curious equipages carriages and palanquins,
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  barrows supplied with sails, and litters made of bamboo, nor the women,
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  whom he thought not especially handsome, who took little steps with their little feet,
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  whereon they wore canvas shoes, straw sandals, and clogs of worked wood,
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  and who displayed tight looking eyes, flat chests, teeth fashionably blackened,
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  and gowns crossed with silken scarves tied at an enormous knot behind an ornament which
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  the modern Parisian ladies seemed to have borrowed from the names of Japan. Pstpartout
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  wandered for several hours in the midst of this motley crowd looking in at the
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  windows of the rich and curious shops, the jewelry establishments glittering with quaint Japanese
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  ornaments, the restaurants decked with streamers and banners, the tea houses where the
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  odorous beverage was being drunk with saki, a liquor concocted from the fermentation of
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  rice, And the comfortable smoking houses where they were puffing not opium, which
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  is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy tobacco. He
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  went on till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of vast
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  rice plantations. There he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves with flowers, which were
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  giving forth their less colors and perfumes, not on bushes, but on trees
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  and within bamboo enclosures, cherry, plum and apple trees, which the Japanese
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  cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit, and which queerly fashioned grinning scarecrows
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  protected from the sparrows, pigeons, ravens, and other voracious birds on the
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  branches of the cedars were perched low large eagles amid the foliage of the weeping
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  willows, were herons solemnly standing on one leg, and on every hand were
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  crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds, and a multitude of cranes,
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  which the Japanese consider sacred, and which to their minds symbolize long life and
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  prosperity. As he was strolling along Passepartout espied some violets among the shrubs.
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  Good said he, I'll have some supper. But on smelling them he found
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  that they were odorless. No chance there, thought he. The worthy fellow
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  had certainly taken good care to eat as hearty a breakfast as possible before leaving
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  the Carnatic, But as he had been walking about all day, the demands
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  of hunger were becoming importunate. He observed that the butcher's stalls contained neither mutton,
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  goat, nor pork, And knowing also that it is a sacrilege to
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  kill cattle which are preserved solely for farming, he made up his mind that
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  meat was far from plentiful in Yokohama. Nor was he mistaken, And in
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  default of butcher's meat, he could have wished for a quarter of wild boar
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  or deer, a partridge, or some quails, some game or fish,
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  which, with rice the Japanese eat almost exclusively, but he found it necessary
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  to keep up a stout heart and to postpone the meal he craved till the
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  following morning. Night came and Passepartout re entered the native quarter, where he
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  wandered through the streets lit by very colored lanterns, looking on at the dancers
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  who were executing skillful steps and boundings, and the astrologers who stood in the
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  open air with their telescopes. Then he came to the harbor, which was
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  lit up by the resin torches of the fishermen who were fishing from their boats.
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  The streets at last became quiet, and the patrol, the officers of
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  which, in their splendid costumes and surrounded by their suites, Passepartout, thoughts
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  seemed like ambassadors, succeeded the bustling crowd. Each time a company passed,
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  Passepartou chuckled and said to himself, good Another Japanese embassy departing for Europe.
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  End of chapter