midday
And then comes a memory of that long reef of staircases and temples and buildings , the ghats of Benares , in the blazing morning sun , swarming with a vast multitude of multicolored people and the water also swarming with brown bodies . It has the colors of a bed of extravagantly splendid flowers and the light that is Indian alone . Even as I sit here these places are alive with happening . It is just past midday here ; at this moment the sun sinks in the skies of India , the Jumna Musjid flushes again with the glow of sunset , the smoke of evening fires streams heavenward against its subtle lines , and upon those steps at Benares that come down the hillside between the conquering mosque of Aurangzeb and the shining mirror of the Ganges a thousand silent seated figures fall into meditation . And other memories recur and struggle with one another ; the crowded river-streets of Canton , the rafts and houseboats and junks innumerable , riding over inky water , begin now to twinkle with a thousand lights . They are ablaze in Osaka and Yokohama and Tokio , and the swarming staircase streets of Hong Kong glitter with a wicked activity now that night has come . I flash a glimpse of Burmese temples , of villages in Java , of the sombre purple masses of the walls of the Tartar city at Pekin with squat pagoda-guarded gates .