"Macao or Ngaomén"

Macao or Ngaomên. A Portuguese colony situated at the Southern extremity of the Si kiang delta. The Portuguese first settled there in 1557 and during several centuries, especially during the eighteenth, it was the great trading centre between China and the West, Since the cession of Hongkong to Great Britain its trade has constantly declined.

It was held at a rental to the Emperor of China of Tls 500 a year till 1848, when Governor Ferreira do Amaral refused to pay any longer and forcibly drove out the Chinese Custom house and with it the last vestige of Chinese authority. He was treacherously murdered in August 1849 near the barrier of Porta do Cerco and his head taken to Canton. The sovereignty of Portugal over the peninsula was officially recognised by China in the treaty signed with Portugal in 1887.

Macao has an area of 11 square miles and with its dependencies a population of 78,000 inhabitants of whom 5,000 are Portuguese and 30,000 Chinese in the city alone. Macao is 88 miles distant from Canton and 40 from Hongkong. It has several churches and possesses the Grotto of Camoens, the celebrated Portuguese poet. 

The town is built in amphitheatre shape on the sides of a hill It is very picturesque and has a beautiful and well shaded promenade, the Praya grande, running along the East sea wall. Numerous visitors and invalids throng there on account of its salubrious and bracing climate. This however does not preserve it from epidemic diseases which frequently break out there. Of its former commercial activity it still retains a few manufactures and carries on a small trade: in tea 8,129 piculs imported from Lappa in 1905 silk opium essential oils tobacco bricks and cement fire crackers and preserves.

The harbour however is fast silting up and will seriously injure trade unless efficient dredging operations are resorted to Ships drawing more than 9 feet of water cannot enter the inner section of the port. This consists of a canal running between the W coast and Lappa or Kungpeh island Large sea going vessels are compelled to anchor 5 miles off where they are exposed to the NE monsoon and to typhoons. During the year 1905 the number of junks which entered from Hongkong reached 518 while those that cleared for the same destination amounted to 368 transporting 115,986 tons. (...)

Excerto de "L. Richard's Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire and Dependencies. Da autoria de Louis Richard, foi publicado em Xangai em 1908.