Omaha daily bee., 1901-01-06

Of Hong Kong and eighty eight miles OF
Canton There are steamers from Macao to
these places every day except Sunday. The
boats are about as good as those OF the
Ohio river and they do excellent business.
Every boat has q guard OF Portuguese SOL
diers to defend the vessel II 1t is attacked
by pirates and to prevent the third-class
passengers from taking possession OF 1t In
case they should be pirates In disguise. The
decks are SO arranged that the third-class
passengers can be cut off from the first and
second class by u network of iron bars.
I came from Hong Kong on the steamer,
travelling first class. During the voyage
went below to have a look at the third
class and found myself In the midst OF as
rough people as l have seen on this SIDE
Of the world. Some were gambling, others
were showing one another this way and that
and the faces OF all were those of rowdies.
Macao Is the most vicious city of the far
east. It has three great specialties-its
opium factory, It's lotteries and Its gam
bling hells
Many of our passengers were Chinese on
their way to buck the tiger In the fantan
houses and to indulge In the other vices
which are forbidden by law In the English
settlement Of Hong Kong. There were
rich gamblers as we'll as poor ones. Among
the Europeans on the upper deck were
many Chinese In gorgeous silks. and with
them hashily dressed Chinese girls, who, l
fear, were not as good as they should De.
The powder and rouge on their faces was
one-sixteenth of an inch thick, their eye
brows were painted and l could see from
their little satin shoes, with toes as shaEp
as q needle, that they had the celebrated
golden lily" feet Clad In the finest silks
thA AncI ha
wind blowing their long sacques to and
fro and wrapping their full. rich silk pan
falcons about their bandaged legs.
In the Portugal of Asia.
A ride of four hours brought us into the
bay of Macao one of the most beautiful
Of the world 1t makes you think OF the
bay of Naples. The harbor Is crescent
walled with houses which might have been
lifted up from the streets of Lisbon and
dropped out here in China They are built
In Portuguese style and painted In all the
colors of the rainbow. The walls are bright
red, sky blue, rose pink, gray, yellow oi
giaring white. The roofs are OF red tiles
The buildings are constructed with arcades
or cloisters separating their walls from tho
roadway. 80 that you can walk almost any
where and avoid the tropical sun. Many o
the houses have bars over their windows
originally so arranged to keep the girls in
after the idea OF Portuguese seclusion.
have seen similar windows in the cities o
Portuguese South America. They are t
be found In Pernambuco, Bahia and Ri
de Janeiro. Macao Is as old as any of thu
Brazilian cities, and II has all the Portu
guese customs of centuries ago. II ha
communicated these to the Chinese parts O
the town, so that even the celestials ba
their doors. the most ordinary door ben
made OF a poied ladder which moves bac
and forth into the walls and is locked ther
by pins at night. These ladder doors ar
black and so are the bars TO the windows.
Macao is built upon hills. The Who'll
peninsula is a mass OF rocks with thi
coating Of earth, part Of which Is covere
with houses. The houses run up hill an
down and tho tops OF the hills are guarde
by forts. Macao has as many hills q
Rome and more forts The forts were bul
to keep off the pirates, Piracy Is commo