"Oldest European Colony In Asia and Its People"

Na página 7 da edição de 5 de Março de 1905 o jornal "The Times Dispatch", de Richmond, Virgina, nos EUA, publica um artigo intitulado "Oldest European Colony In Asia and Its People". Seguem-se alguns exertos:

By Alleyne Ireland, F.R.G.S., Author of "Tropical Colonisation," etc. 

When the visitor in Hongkong gots tired of the rush and hurry of that thriving excrescence of the China coast; when the constant firing of salutes in honor of the daily advent of warships grates on his nerves; (...) the wise manlunches at the Hongkong Club, takes a rickshaw down the water front to the wharf of the Hongkong, Canton & Macao Steamship Company and embarks on one of the comfortable boats which leave in the early afternoon and land you in Macao in time for dinner in the same evening. (...)

The trip from Hongkong to Macao occupies about four hours. (...) Macao is a city of dreams, offering to the curious visitor thw spectacale of ancient forts and churches, decayed ramparts and all the relics of past greatness. (...)

Macao dates back to the sixteenth century. Is the oldest European colony in Asia and in its ruined churches and forts the present day traveler sees the remains of a system of colonization in which the priest and the soldier wero tho guiding spirits, and the man of commerce merely an adjunct. (...)

Macao is a favourite resort of honeymooners; and the cyni may discern in a week's sojourn there every degree of Illusion or disillusion to which that peculliar state is popularly supposed to tend itself. The most striking feature in the general view of Macao, which you obtain front the verandah of the Hotel Boa Vista, is the local skyscraper which does duty as a pawnbroker's establishment. It is a building of some seven or eight stories, and looks not unlike as rudimentary storage warehouse. It has rows of narrow; windows, and ingress is obtained through a very small door. (...)

The pawnbroker's establishment plays a very Important part in Chinese life. (...) The principal, if not the only industries, which flourish in Macao, are the Chinese fan-tan gambling business and the government lottery. (...)

Nas ilustrações a fachada de uma "Chinese gambling house in Macao" e "A lady musician of Macao".

1905年美國維珍尼亞州報紙報導亞洲最古老殖民地 澳門