The Llano colonist. [volume] (Llano, Calif.) 191?-1937, 1922-04-08

that is not why most folk board the
daily boat from Hongkong to go there.
1t is a summer resort for the Canton
ese because of it's exposure to the
cooling monsoons in midsummer.
Opium smugglers and gamblers, in re-
cent years, have doomed large among
its transients. Formerly the Chinese
coolie traffic also had headquarters
here. Within century its waters may
have warranted the Characterization
of one traveller who called them 'the
most dangerous waters of the world
from a police standpoint" and added
"a river trip is spiced with the risk
of piratical attack"
Revenues From Gambling.
The ideas of Henry George and 9TH
er tax theorists have found a niggard
soil in Macao, whose fiscal policy is
simplicity itself. Poo-chee and fan
tan provide the revenues of the city.
1t has been said that half the minted
pieces of the Far East find their way
sooner or later to the gambling boards
of Macao, and the old Rix dollar, the
Mexican peso and the American dime
are clinked upon the tables of the
jeunesse doree, or of the 'rickshaw
coolies and harbor riff-raff of the town,
while daily flow of men, women and
dollars crosses the estuary from Hong
kong to Macao and pours into the
hells Of the Roa do Jogo, or gambling
street.
Fan-tan is the favorite game, but it
is nothing like the card game of that
name known to Americans. The Chi
nese croupiers sit enthroned before a
square marked at the corners with
the numbers l, 2, and 4. The banker
reclines behind grating, smoking a
long pipe. Overhead is a gallery run
ming all around the room and forming
sort of ceiling, pierced only by a
hole the size of the table. From this
gallery the bets are made, and the
stakes are alternately let down and
drawn up, accompanied by the sound
of drawing minstrelsy.
The croupier takes a handful Of
small coins and covers them with a
reversed bowl, while money is laid
on one of the four numbers. When
the betting has ceased he lifts the
bowl and separates the coins with his
wand. Then he counts them by tours,
and the remainder, or the last four,
If there be no remainder, represents
the winning number. Each hazard Is
one-to-three wager, and the banks
on haf 1nI. I,
house percentage. A number of these
licensed gambling dens, graded accord
ing to the limit of wager allowed, pay
the revenues of the city of Macao.
Attractive to Travellers.
Present day Macao is not marred
for the casual traveller by either it's
flair for fan-tan or its thriving trade
in opium. The latter is shipped away
to wreak it's havoc the former brings
the bizarre and the adventurous. The
city of today is one of the few Far
Eastern coast towns which have not
been caught in the resistless current
of commercial progress, and for that
reason it presents some Interesting
studies to lovers of the picturesque.
He who lands from steamer is
captivated by its blend of Portuguese
and Chinese people, by pagoda and
western church, and when the sum-
mons of hunger leads him to a hotel
that has been called the cleanest and
most beautifully situated in the Or
lent, the contrast persists. He may
order the famous Portuguese colares
with his yellow water chestnut pasties,
and choose either ultra-occidental
game dinners or pudding of CALCULATED
ducks blood and sugar-preserved bam-
boo shoots. There are but 1900 Por-
tuguese resident there, but they rep
resent four-century impress that
their nationality has made upon the
total population of about $4,000.
After dinner the visitor may stroll
along the Praya Grande, both the
Broadway and the Riverside drive of
Macao. Having shopped and Summed,
he finally will be led to catch the
deeper romance of the city in the
grotto where the poets have carved
lines of praise to the one-eyed soldier
poet who wrote the glory of farthest
West Europe on an island of nearly
'farthest East China