A spacious street called Praya Grande

The town of Macao is built on hilly ground. There are two principal ranges of hills, one running from south to north and the other from east to west. The level ground is covered with many houses of European architecture, and a great number of Chinese shops for tradesmen and mechanics, called the Bazaar. On the lofty mount to the eastward is a fort, enclosing the hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Guia, and above it stands the oldest lighthouse on the coast of China. This lighthouse was built in 1864, and its light can be seen from a distance of 20 miles. On another mount, to the westward, stands the hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Penha. 

Entering a wide, semi-circular bay, facing the east, one sees on the right the fort of St. Francisco, and on the left the old fort of Bomparto, now transformed into a residence. Around this bay runs a broad, airy, and spacious street called Praya Grande, flanked by many pretty houses, among which is the residence of the Governor. 

To the east of the town there is a suburban quarter, formerly named "Campo" or field, where lately some regular roads have been opened and many new houses built. A spacious recreation ground and an avenue planted with eight rows of trees, named Avenida Vasco da Gama, make this the most pleasant and picturesque part of the town. In this avenue are two monuments. One commemorates the defeat of the Dutch, who landed eight hundred men on the Cacilhas beach on June 24, 1622; the other was erected on the fourth centenary of the discovery of the maritime route to India by Vasco da Gama.

Imagem e excerto de artigo da autoria de Pedro Nolasco Da Silva, no livro Twentieth-century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China: their history, people, commerce, industries, and resources, Londres, 1908