Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-16
In LUSITANIAN THULE
A Decaying Settlement in the South
east Corner of China.
PORTUGUESE In THE FAR EAST.
Playing Fan-Tan With Chinese Gamblers
at Macao.
THE GROTTO OF THE POET CAMOENS

fFRoM OUR TRAVELLING CoMMISsIoNER.1
MACAO, May 22.-"Where the carcas.
is, there also will the eagles be gathered to.
gether." China is the great carcass of Asia
and round her the eagles of Europe and
America press and jostle one another
England is entrenched at Hong Kong and
many fat slice has she carried away. And
now she is stretching out another claw
through Thibet. America has half oil
Shanghai, and to and from San francisco
the bird of prey passes regularly in his
flight. France is trying hard to carry of
her share of the carcass through Tong King,
aud Port Arthur in the north is big piece
fallen to the lot of French syndicate.
Herr Krupp represents Germany's chief
plunder, and the Yamen Of Ii Hung Chang
at Hentsin is nest of commercial 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 Asiatic carcass there
is beetle; among the birds of prey there Is
parasite.
The extreme southeast corner of China is
the scene of the dying struggles of mon
grel fragment of once intrepid and famous
race,-a fragment drawing its meager sus-
tenance with more difficulty every day.
The hand of Vasco di Cana would have
wavered upon the helm as he rounded the
Cape of Good Hope, of all the men in Eu-
rope, "the first that ever burst into the silent
seas' of the East, if he could have foreseen
to what a wretched pass and laughing
stock his countrymen there would come
after less than 400 years. The daughter of
the 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 II hours.
A BEAUTIFUL SITE.
Yet Macao is not such bad place, at first
sight. Its bay is a perfect crescent. Around
this runs a broad boulevard, called the
Praya Grande, shadowed with fine old arch
ing banyan trees. At each horn the Portu-
guese flag waves over little fort. Behind
the town green wooded hills rise like an
amphitheater, and among the houses pic
turesque old building sticks up here and
there-the Cathedral, the barracks, the mill
tary hospital, the older Fort Monte. The
whitewashed houses with their green blinds
and wide shady porticos and verandas, from
which dark eyes look idly down upon you
as you pass, recall many little Italian and
Spanish town. A couple of yacht-like Portu-
guese gunboats lie at anchor in the river
beyond the bay. On Sundays and Thurs
days the band plays in the public gardens,
and surely nowhere in the world do the
buglers lnger so long over the reveille and
retreat as they do here every day. To the
busy broker or merchant of Hongkong. who
runs over here in the summer from Satur-
day to Monday. after week of hard work
and perspiration, coming dollars in a
Turkish bath, Macao is tiny haven of rest,
where the street is free from the detestable
ceaseless chatter of Cinnamon, where the
air is fresh and the hills green, and where a
little ''hutter" at An-tan is miniature and
amusing substitute for the daily struggle
with exchanges and settlements and short
sales.
And Macao had its glorious past, too.
After they had rounded the Cape the Portu-
guese occupied great part of the coast of
India, sent an embassy to the Emperor of
China, and occupied Ningpo. There one
night 200 of them were murdered. So thev
resettled place called Chinchew, where
the same fate overlook them. Nothing
daunted, they came iurther south and after
helping the Chinese to destroy hordes of
pirates were permitted to settle IN peace on
a small peninsula near the mouth of one If
the two river approaches to Canton. Here
Macao was founded in 1867, and up to 184S
the Portuguese paid yearly rental of $500
in presents or money.
IT FOLLOWED THE CROWN.
In 1852 when the crown of Portugal
passed to Spain, Macao followed suit. When
it went back again in 1910 in the person of !
John ", of Portugal, Macao again changed |
its flag and made "a great donation" to the |
new King. At this time it was described |
as 'a melhor mas prospero columna que |
Of Portugueyes tenn EN- todo Oriento." the |
best and most prosperous colony tnat the |
Portuguese possess in all the East Then |
its population was 1880. By 1880 it had
dwindled to 4,628, of so mixed blood that |
only go persons were registered as of pure |
Portuguese descent. To-day it holds g., 500
Chinese, LAG so-called Portuguese, and 78 |
all 68,086. What is the explana-
tion of this sudden enormous multiplication
Of its population? Like Satan, Macao was
by merit raised to that bad eminence." 1t
won back its ancient prosperity by offering
its houses and its traders as the last refuge
in the East to that hell upon earth, the
egalized coolie traffic.
When Hongkong stopped this forever
1nder the British flag BY the Chinese
md INSCRIPTIONS arms to the 'labor
agents." and for nearly 20 years, when
public opinion became too strong for even
his mongrel and far-away community, the
little city fourished, its Inhabitants made
ortunes, the Praya Grande was crowded
very evening by gay and gaudy throng,
he streets were beautified, the cathedral was
ebuilt, and the Portuguese colony became
amous throughout the East for its elaborate
eligious professions and its eloquent priests.
And during these 20 years uncounted thou
ands of coolies were decoyed, entrapped,
tolen and pirated to Macao, kept prisoners
n the gloomy ''barracoons," whose grated
windows are still everywhere visible, theo-
etically certified as voluntary contract
aborers by an infamous profit-sharing ''pro-
urador," and then shipped to toll, and
tarYe, and rot, and die in mines and fields
nd plantations everywhere, literally "trom
)hina to Peru" AS a single specimen of
he traffic it is commonly affirmed that of
900 coolies sent to the foul guano pits Of
he Chincha Islands, not single soul re-
urned.
sLAvERY'S CURSE.
But retribution has fallen upon Macao
1T seems as though the curses of the MUIR
cred coolies have come back to it. Not
oul walks the beautiful Praya; the harbor
sitting up so fast that in five years there
ill not be as many feet of water in it; even
be Chinese are leaving 1.-THE last of rats
, quit sinking ship; its miserable inhabi-
ants, interbred from Chinese, Portuguese,