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W. J. HINTON
exposed side and stretches along the sheltered bay, while the wind whistles over the roofs of the house to fill the sails of the junks and sampans in the harbour.
The ridge is more or less covered with drifts of coarse quartz crystals from the two beaches but the decomposed granite of which it is made bears fresh water and several wells are sunk there. The "bells" of the dumbell are much eroded masses of decomposed granite thickly strewn with massive black boulders, and patched with occasional slopes of bare rock on which huge fragments are balanced precariously. Where dykes and bands of more soluble or softer rock have been the hills are deeply trenched, and the narrow glens end in little coves with beaches of coarse quartz sand. Little watercourses make the bottoms of the glens swampy, where they have not been cleared, but in most there are deep pits dug to trap the water, and channels to conserve the flow. There is not enough water to cultivate rice and in the dry season every drop must be saved in the pits, and mingled there with manure to be carried in watering cans and sprayed over the carrots and cabbages in the midst of clouds of flies.
Natural vegetation is sparse on the whole. The sheltered parts of the glens bear thin woods of China pine, good only for fire-wood, and this has been cut for that purpose in most of the valleys. It is now preserved and planted by the Colonial Government. On the higher slopes wild guava and various myrtles and camellias are the most conspicuous shrubs. There is a coarse tufted grass partly covering the harsh soil, and affording fodder and fuel.
In the glens are bamboos near the pools and watercourses, and flowering trees like the Persian Lilac. Here in spring a breath of sweetness meets the visitors sickened by the noisome fluid for ever being poured on the little terraces.
Near the houses are groves of fruit trees, papayas, oranges or bananas.
The climate is of the usual South China type. That is to say rather like Florida. A hot summer with a weak Southerly monsoon, on which fierce typhoons come riding at intervals, advancing no faster than a ship can steam, but whirling madly at a velocity of over a hundred miles an hour. Woe to the junks who do not get the news in time of their approach to run for shelter!