The hard, unblinking sun fixed the white buildings around the harbour in a swimming heat-haze, making the windows glitter and twist, as if in pain. Even the mean, squalid little streets, crammed with their surging streams of colourful humanity, could not escape, although the shopfronts crouched in permanent semi-darkness. Only the uneven tops of the smart new skyscrapers, and the distant roofs of the sleepy hill-property seemed free from the stifling pressure of noise and dirt. From the harbour these buildings made a pleasant backdrop, distance helping to mould them into a live and vital picture for the newcomer. Old mixed with new. The great temple, overshadowed by the giant building of the Communist China Bank, and the neat white bungalows of the civil servants, lumped almost alongside the peeling tin roof of a canning factory. The contrast was apparent too on the water. It was never quite still, as in any other harbour. It was always jammed with its countless beetle-like craft, from bobbing ungainly sampans, and the battered water-taxis, to the tall, ancient junks, which glided like great bats amongst the other craft with unerring accuracy and calm.
