A Day in Macao [pp. 666-684]

1883.] A DAY IN MAcAo. 669
high upon the rocky hills a ruined fort opens to the river-once,
perhaps, the pride and stronghold of the city, alive with gaudily~
apparelled soldiers, its walls echoing their martial tramp, the
island hills hurling back from the sea, in sombre reverberation, the cannon's hollow roar; now gloomy, silent, falling into
decay, with great stones of its masonry scattered here and there
over the mountain-side.
The rivers of China are alike in that they are crowded with
all sorts of native craft. Among huge junks and lorchas, some
almost buned under their cargoes of wood, among sam pans and
hakka-boats, the steamboat wended her way. Save for a few
fishing~boats, the bay fronting the opposite side of the town is
deserted; but this river teems with life and was the harbor for
the city when the city was at her glory. It is the harbor still,
but the water is shallower than it was, and Macao has now no
shipping. She has lost her pristine glory, and with it have gone
her wealth and her trade. A small man-of-war rode at anchor in
the roadstead to lend the city her protection and to show that
Portugal still held sway over these waters and this land; but it
was much like that of the Greeks which Dickens describes in
his Italian notes. Riding at anchor, also, some distance out on
the sea, a bark waited for a cargo of tea.
The emperor of China ceded this city to the Portuguese in
i585 as a recognition of their services in repelling the Japanese
pirates that infested the coast, though many Portuguese had
taken up their residence and had entered into trade here before
this period, and Portugal's greatest poet, Camoens, here dwelt in
banishment from 1555 to i56o. It was at one time of considerable commercial importance, but as Portugal's greatness declined
little by little its commerce fell away, until the last remnants
disappeared when its coolie trade was wrested from it some
years ago. It is picturesquely situated on the slopes of a hill,
the ridge of the hill traversing the centre of the city like a backbone. Its streets are narrow and tortuous, and their names at
the intersections are probably the only signs in the Portuguese
language in Macao. The houses are low, whitewashed, and occupied mostly by Chinese. The descendants of those old Portuguese that made this city their home are for the most part
Eurasian and form a distinct class by themselves.
It was ten o'clock when we stepped upon the wharf and made
our way as best we could amid a throng of coolies, all crying at
once for a fare, and thrusting their worn and dilapidated chairs
across the road, thus barring further progress, until one was