Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-15

syndicate. Herr Krupp represents Germanys
chief plumber, and the Yamen of Ii Hung
chang at Tientsin is nest OF COM
merclal intrigue on behalf of the
fatherland. And Russia is laying heavy paw
upon China from the north. All this is natural
enough, and SO far as England and America
are concerned it is the inevitable flow of trade
In the channels of least resistance. But among
the birds around this Asatic carcass there Is a
beetle; among the birds of prey there Is para
site. The extreme southeast corner of China Is
the scene of the dying struggles OF mongrel
fragment of once intrepid and famous race
fragment drawing it's meager sustenance with
more difficulty every day. The hand OF Nasco
di CANA would have wavered upon the helm as
he rounded the Cape of Good Hope, OF all the
men in Europe 1.-The first that ever burst into
the silent seas" of the east If he could have
foreseen to what wretched pass and laughing
stock his countrymen there would come after
less than four hundred years. The daughter
of king of Portugal was at Hong Kong few
days ago. She came, of course, to visit her
own people and stand under her own flag at
Macao. But glimpse was too much for her
and she left within twelve hours.
PICTURESQUE VIEW.
Yet Macao is not such a bad place. at first
sight. Its bay Is a perfect crescent. Around
this runs broad boulevard. called the Praya
Grande, Swallowed with fine old arching banyan
trees. At each horn the Portuguese flag waves
over a little fort. Behind the town green
wooded hills rise like an amphitheater, and
among the houses a picturesque old building
sticks up here and there-the catlN dral, the
barracks, the military hospital. the older Fort
Monte, the whitewashed houses with their
green blinds and wide, shady porticos and
verandas, from which dark ewes look
idly down upon you as you pass. re-
call many a little italian and Spanish
town. a couple of yacht-like Portuguese
gunboats lie at anchor in the river
beyond the bay. On Sundays and Thursdays
the band plays in the public gardens and surely
nowhere i'll the world do the buglers linger SO
long over the reveile and the retreat as they
do here every day. To the busy broker or mer-
chant OF Hong Kong, who runs over here in the
summer from Saturday to Monday, after a
week OF hard work and perspiratiOn, coming
dollars in a Turkish bath, Macao is a tinv
haven of rest. where the street is free from
the detestable ceaseless chatter of Cinnamon
where the air IL fresh and the hills green
and where little .'fiutter" at fan-tan is a
miniature and amusing substitute for the daily
struggle with exchanges and settlements and
short sales.
ROMANTIC PAST.
And Macao has its glorious past, too. After
they had rounded the cape the Portuguese oc-
cupied great part of the coast of India, sent
an embassy to the emperor of China and occu-
pied Ningpo. There one night loo of them
were murdered So they resettied a place
called Chinchew, where the same fate overlook
them. Nothing daunted, they came farther
south, and. after helping the Chinese to DESTROY
hordes OF pirates, were permitted to settle in
peace on small peninsula near the mouth of
one one OF the Two river approaches to Canton.
Here Macao was founded i'll 1857 and I'D to
ISIS the Portuguese paid yearly rental Of
SJOO In presents or money. In 1882, when the
crown of Portugal passed to Spain, Macao
followed suit. When 1T went back again in
1910, in the person of John ~ of PORTUGAL
MACAO nhanOpn ~ f1a0 nj IL,
great donation" to the new king. At this time
II was described as "a melhor : mas
prospero columna que os Portugueyes tenn EN-
TODD Oriente," the best and most prosperous
colony that the Portuguese possess in all the
east. Then Its population was 10, 500. By 1880
1t had dwlndled TO 4.62S, of so mixed blood
that only 30 persons were registered as of pure
Portuguese descent. To-day 1t holds g. 500 Chi
nese, 4,416 so-calied Portuguese and Is others
IN all 68,OS6. What is the explanation of this
sudden enormous multiplication of its popuIa-
ton! Like Satan, Macao was .by merit raised
to that bad eminence." 1t won back its an
cient prosperity by offering its houses and its
traders as the last refuge in the east to that
hell upon earth, the legalized coolie traffic
When Hong Kong stopped this forever under
the British flag by he.Chinese passengers act
OF 1894 Macao opened eager and INSCRIPTIONS
arms to the 'labor agents." and for nearly
twenty years, when public opinion
h0urIshed Its inhabitants made fortunes. the
Praya Grande was crowded every evening by a
gay and gaudy throng, the streets were beauti-
he'd, the cathedral was rebuilt and the Portu-
guese colony became famous throughout the
east for Its elaborate religious professions and
Its eloquent priests. And during these twenty
years uncounted thousands of coolies were de-
coyed, entrapped. stolen and pirated to Macao.
Kept prisoners in the gloomy ''barracoons. +"
whose grated windows still everywhere
u ILll .ln fhan Nsalw .-+,As
tract laborers by an infamous proft-sharine
procurador, and then shipped to toll. and
stdrye, and rot, and die in mines and fields and
plantations everywhere, literally from China
TO Peru. As single specimen Of the traffic it
Is commonly affirmed that Of 1000 coolies sent
to the foul guano-pits of the Chincha Islands.
not a single soul returned
THE RETRIBUTIoy OF FATE.
But retribution has fallen upon Mscao-it
seems as though the curses Of the murdered
coolies have come back to it. Not a soul
walks the beautiful Praya; the harbor is sitting
Up SO fast that in nve years there will not be az
many feet OF water in it; even the Chinese are
Leaving 1.-THE last OF rats to quit a sinking
ship; its miserable inhabitants interbred from
Chinese, Portuguese, Malay, Indian and un-
known human jetsam to such an extent that
the few Portuguese troops here regard the
Chinaman as socially superior to the Mes
ticos, have fallen into utter apathy; thew
subslst on moneys furnished to them by their
piuckler relatives in foreign employ in Hong
kong and elsewhere, and the military band in
the public gardens plays to a score ~ loafers.
There Is no manufacture, no social life. and
almost no trade since the smuggling of opium
has been stopped by Sir Robert Harris treaty
OF last year, giving Macao in perpetuity
to the Portuguese on the condition that its cns.
toms should be controlled by his staff. Portn-
gal doles it out yearly pittance. and its other
chief source of reven ne is the $50 900 il draws
annually from its gaming tables. For when
one wickedness was stopped in Macao il was
quick TO find another. and to-day it is the onIv
place IN the far east where you can play fan-tan
under a foreign flag. But its history is almost
closed; the days Of its disappearing trade and
its decomposing population are numbered. and
unless cement company, which has lust been
started here on q small island leased from the
bishop, should bring back a semblance of pros-
perity this gem OF the orient earth and omen
sea" as am ashamed to say an Enelisb noet
(who had certainly never seen it) preposter.
ously described it, will have disappeared like
other places and peoples which we're. sinned
too much, and are not
WHERE cAMoENs WROTE
One classic memory, however, will save
Macao from oblivion. It was here that the ax.