A Visita do Presidente dos Estados Unidos em 1879

Em 1879 o presidente dos EUA ,Ulysses Simpson Grant (1869-1877), visitou Macau já no final de uma viagem pelo mundo - Abril 1879 - que começou em 1877 e teve passagem por Lisboa. 

Macau numa ilustração da época (não faz parte dos livros aqui referidos) 

No livro "Around the World with General Grant (...)" da autoria de John Russell Young publicado em 1879, encontramos este excerto relativo à ida a Macau do então presidente dos EUA e à visita à gruta acompanhado pelo proprietário da quinta, o senhor Marques. Como o Governador estava "muito doente" não houve nenhum encontro entre os dois.

We sailed down the river from Canton on the morning of the 9th of May, bound for Macao. Macao is a peninsula on the east coast of China within five hours sail of Hong Kong a distance of about forty miles.

In the days of Portuguese commercial greatness when Albuquerque was carrying the sword and St Francis Xavier the cross, through the East, Macao was picked up by Portuguese adventurers and added to the Indian possessions of Portugal. That empire has crumbled has been taken by Englishman and Hollander. Macao remains as a remnant a ruin of an empire that once bid fair to rule the continent of Asia.

The town looks picturesque as you come to it from the sea with that aspect of faded grandeur which adds to the beauty if not to the interest and value of a city. As the 'Ashuelot' came around the point in view of Macao a slight sea was rolling and a mist hung over the hills.

As soon as our ship was made out from the shore the Portuguese battery flashed out a salute of twenty one guns to which the 'Ashuelot' responded. About five o clock we came to an anchor and the aide of the Governor came on board to say that the illness, and we were sorry to hear, the serious illness, of the Governor prevented his doing any more than sending the most cordial welcome to Macao.

The General landed and drove to a hotel. In the evening he strolled about and in the morning visited the one sight which gives Macao a world wide fame, the grotto of Camoens. Senhor Marques, the present owner, had built an arch over the entrance with the inscription 'Welcome to General Grant'. 

The grounds surrounding the grotto are beautiful and extensive and for some time we walked past the bamboo, the pimento, the coffee and other tropical trees and plants. Then we ascended to a bluff and from the point we had a commanding view of the town the ocean and the rocky coasts of China.

The grotto of Camoens is inclosed with an iron railing and a bust of the poet surmounts the spot where, according to tradition, he was wont to sit and muse and compose his immortal poems. General Grant inscribed his name in the visitors book and accompanied by Senhor Marques returned to the 'Ashuelot', which at once steamed for Hong Kong.

A visita ficou ainda registada na obra "Grant's Tour Around The World" publicada em 1880.  Segue-se um excerto do capítulo 36:

Camoens lived in the age when it was not unbecoming for a poet to be a soldier, and to engage in adventurous enterprises. He lost his sight in a conflict with the Moors, and, dissatisfied with the condition of his affairs in Portugal, sailed for the East in the thirty-sixth year of his age. In the Portuguese colony of Goa he made enemies by the freedom with which he criticised the rulers, and the result was that he came in banishment to Macao, where in time local friendschip procured him the appointment of administrator to the estates of deceased persons. Here he wrote a good part of the Lusiad.

Senhor Marques, a Portuguese resident, is now the owner of what is now known as Camoens' Grotto. General Grant visited it the morning after his arrival, and was shown over the grounds by Senhor Marques, who, in honor of our coming, had built an arch over the entrance with the inscription - "Welcome to General Grant."
The grounds surrounding the grotto are beautiful and extensive, and for some time we walked past bamboo, the pimento, the coffee, and other tropical trees and plants. Then we ascended to a bluff overlooking the town and sea, and from the point we had a commanding view of the town, the ocean, and the rocky coasts of China. The grotto of Camoens is enclosed with an iron railing, and a bust of the poet surmounts the spot where, according to tradition, he was wont to sit and muse and compose his immortal poems. General Grant inscribed his name in the visitors' book, and, accompanied by Senhor Marques, returned to the Ashuelot, which at once steamed for Hong Kong. Salutes were fired from the Portuguese battery as we left, and at two o'clock we landed in Hong Kong harbor, where Governor Hennessy met the General and took him to the Government House.

Fotografia de John Thomson ca. 1870

General Grant's Tour Around the World: With a Sketch of His Life, de W. H. Hicks, 1879

"Departing from Canton the General next stopped at Macao the Portuguese colony in China. The city of Macao is situated on the coast of China at the mouth of the Canton river occupying a peninsula on the southeast side of the island of Heang Shang. The city has a population of about 60,000 people of whom 10,000 are a mixed multitude of nearly all nations of the world except Chinese who form the balance of the city's inhabitants.

The city is built upon the acclivity of two hills around a large semi circular bay and seen from the water its white washed stone houses make it one of the brightest sunniest spots on the coast of China. The place has a literary fame too as having been the residence of the Portuguese poet Camoens. Here in a grotto delightfully situated in a garden back of the city he wrote part of the Lusiad. 

This beautiful spot which now bears the name of Camoens Garden was pronounced by the tourists to be just such a spot as a poet would select in which to walk and muse and give rein to his fancy. The grotto a peculiar formation of rocks shaded by large oriental trees was entered with veneration the travelers feeling that they were treading upon classic ground. Notwithstanding these romantic reflections on leaving the place they could not but remark upon the courtesy they had received at the hands of the proprietor of the place Senor Marques who not only showed them over the grounds but emphasized his kind reception by building over the entrance to the grotto a beautiful arch bearing the inscription 'Welcome to General Grant'."

A curta visita de Grant a Macau mereceu ainda um pequeno parágrafo no livro "The Life and Travels of General Grant", da autoria de J. T. Headley, publicado em 1879.

"Grant visited Macao on his return a Portuguese town having been occupied by them more than three hundred years ago so that the inhabitants are a mixture of Chinese and Portuguese. It is handsomely situated and looks from the sea like an Italian city on an Italian bay but all of interest to Grant here was the grotto and tomb of the poet Camoen. The governor was too sick to see him and he strolled about the town for awhile looking at the strange people with their strange customs and then returned to the 'Ashuelot' and with a salute from the Portuguese fort steamed out of the beautiful bay."

Podem também encontrar-se registos em tudo semelhantes aos já mencionados no livro "A Tour Around the World by General Grant: Being a Narrative of the Incidents", de James D. McCabe publicado em 1879.