"The landing place at Macao"

"The Pagoda of the Rocks at Macao" / O Pagode dos rochedos em Macau é a legenda desta ilustração - do Pagode da Barra - incluída num livro publicado em 1875 em Londres e do qual retirei ainda alguns excertos sobre Macau. A obra incluiu outra ilustração muito semelhante com a legenda "The landing place at Macao / Local de desembarque em Macau" (imagem abaixo).

"All Round the World: An Illustrated Record of Voyages, Travels, and Adventures in all parts of the globe with two hundred illustrations", de William Ainsworth, Londres, 1875.

The first thing an European landing at Macao in olden times did, was to go and see the Chinese Paogda at the Rocks. He could wend his way there and back in a tanka or native boat or he stroll there by the sea side. (...) But if the temple of Macao is poor and badly kept, its position is highly picturesque The inner harbour with its legion junks and tankas lies at its feet above it are blocks of granite and secular trees whose vigorous roots fasten in the crevices while close by are and little oratories in honour of inferior. On the portico is a great junk painted in red there is an inscription in Chinese on the rock. The air of respectable antiquity, presented by the Portuguese settlement of Macao, is refreshing after parvenu character with which its ostentatious invests Hong Kong.

The narrow streets grass grown plazas the handsome façade of the fine cathedral crumbling to decay the shady walks and grottoes once the haunts of the Portuguese poet tomb and the view from it all combine to produce soothing and tranquilising effect. Hong Kong represents the commercial and political movement of the present Macao is the city of calm and of the past. The time is gone by when the intrepid Portuguese navigators dominated in these seas. Their degenerate descendants are now reduced in order to obtain a livelihood to seek for employment in the great English or American houses The bright day for Portugal is gone by and fickle fortune rallies under other standards. (...)

The neighbourhood of Hong Kong takes from Macao almost all its advantages as a free port add to which the sea is daily invading its harbour as it does the whole of the right shore of the Canton river Vessels of considerable tonnage are obliged to anchor a mile or two from the harbour and only small gunboats can lay off the quay of Praya Grande.

Nevertheless, Macao notwithstanding its decline is not wanting in claims to interest the claims of memory more especially This town was for a long period of time the sole centre of the relations of Europeans with the Chinese, Camoens, Saint François Xavier and other great men have lived there. Its churches, its convents, its public monuments dark with age, attest of splendour long gone by .

The garden of Camoens is in the present day private property it belongs to a Portuguese gentleman of the neath shady recesses so rare in China. Within this name of Marquès who allows strangers to saunter begarden is the celebrated grotto where the poet is said to have in main part composed his Lusiad. Quotations from that immortal epic are now cut into the marble and, what is more delightful to French visitors, some Gallic verses in honour of the poet and the locality. 

The inner port can be contemplated from a terrace in this garden, as from the Pagoda of Rocks, with a less oppressive noise the shouts of the tankaderes or boatmen and boatwomen and terrible gongs heard so assiduously beaten to drive away the evil spirits a junk about to proceed on its journey come here softened by distance.

The Parsees have a cemetery that rises in successive steps or terraces above the sea and this with the little Portuguese forts built like eagles nests the so called Green Island, the narrow strip that encircles Macao to the main island and the wide extent of the Celestial Empire beyond fill up a picture that is not easily forgotten by those who have once seen it. 

We wandered about this splendid relic of gaiety and wealth now a disjointed collection of deserted palaces haggard boat women ugly dames of Portuguese descent with handkerchiefs pinned over their faces long narrow alleys decaying churches walks parades gardens forts all corroded by time.

From the top of a great stone arbour in the old palace garden we had a fine view of the old town and both harbours the inner and the outer. We came back through the Chinese town where with restless activity mechanics were working at their respective trades. Shopmen were doing a thriving business while barbers never were busierand your barber is an important personage here as elsewhere as such a man needs must be where every man has his head shaved twice a week. No Chinaman uses anything but hot water his razor is only two inches long by an inch wide which is sold for two pence and the strop a piece of stout calico may be had for a penny. See here the sallow Chinaman stretched at full length in an easy chair is enjoying his shampooing and pommellings. Shaving the head costs half a farthing yet there are seven thousand barbers in the city of Canton only. To which city we will now go steaming on as fast as the crowd of boats will let us. (...)