Journal of Voyages and Travels by the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet

"Journal of voyages and travels by the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet, Esq. deputed from the London missionary society, to visit their various stations in the South sea islands, China, India, &c. between the years 1821 and 1829" é o longo título de uma obra compilada por James Montgomery e publicada em Londres no de 1831 em dois volumes. Macau surge no capítulo XL do volume 2.

Remonta ao tempo em que o reverendo Robert Morrison - que traduziu a bíblia para chinês - ainda vivia em Macau. Destaco ainda os detalhes das descrições da cidade na primeira metade do século 19 onde não falta, claro, a referência à gruta de Camões e ao templo de A-Ma, na Barra. Mas há mais. Aqui ficam alguns excertos.

Oct 15

Captain Heaviside took us to Macao in his boat. The town is situated on a small bay which extends a mile from point to point. The white fronted houses rising from the beach upon a gentle slope present a good appearance on the approach a fort above and several churches among the inferior buildings giving the whole an air of European consequence. On landing we proceeded to the residence of the Society's agent, the celebrated translator of the Scriptures into the Chinese tongue, the Rev Dr Morrison. Here we experienced a serious disappointment he having departed some time ago on a visit to England. Expecting our arrival he had made arrangements for our reception in his house in which notwithstanding the inconveniences resulting from the absence of the host we preferred to make our abode rather than go to an hotel, Mr Daniel a resident kindly assisted us in settling there.

Oct 16

Lord's day. The Protestant chaplain being at Canton whither the principal Englishmen resort during the season which this is leaving their wives at Macao because females are not permitted to approach the confines of the celestial empire there was no divine service here which we could with propriety attend Indeed we had no ground to expect to find a native congregation here as we well knew that the state of the country and The poor the circumstances of the esteemed labourer in it Dr Morrison had not admitted of efforts directly missionary His honour has been to translate the Holy Scriptures into the language of that vast Empire and thus to lay a foundation on which other builders may hereafter be appointed to build a stable and stately edifice.

A Chinese having on the Lord's day asked Mr Tyerman whether he should not take his linen to be washed: Not to day because it is the Christian's Sabbath or day of rest consecrated to the worship of God, was the answer fellow expressed no surprise but enquired with the most unaffected simplicity whether the other gentleman Mr Bennet was likewise a Sunday man.

These people seem equally unimpassioned and unimpressible. Their quietism of idolatry is mere apathy they do as they like that is just as their fathers did in matters of religion and they leave all the world beside to do the same saying to those who differ from them Your way may be very good for any thing we know to the contrary ours is so too follow yours therefore and we will follow ours after the steps of our fathers. 

Oct 17

We walked across the island or rather the peninsular part of Macao to the barrier gate which separates the European from the Chinese section of the soil and where that jealous people have built a great wall from sea to sea on a narrow isthmus or sand bank to keep the strangers within the limits prescribed to them. This peninsular part is one mass of granite heaved into small eminences and fractured into crags and hollows having a few acres of soil in the centre on which vegetables principally rice are cultivated with the utmost care by Chinese husbandmen. There are a few clumps of trees on this spot but its general aspect is that of incorrigible sterility. The summits of the hills are crowned either with Portuguese churches or with forts. 

A little earth may here and there be traced among the crevices of the granite strata by the miserable phenomenon of short starved grass struggling here and there for existence in obedience to a law of nature which compels life in one form or another to come forth wherever there is the possibility of it being in any manner maintained. 

As there are no carriage roads those who do not walk must either be conveyed in sedans or ride on horseback and paths for the convenience of the latter have been made in every direction over the uneven rock where beasts of burthen can travel. 

On the Macao side of the barrier wall and isthmus stands a sumptuous Chinese pagoda consisting of several compartments In each of these are idols of many barbarous models before some of which incense is continually burning In one of these sanctuaries an urn containing warm tea is placed on a table with two saucers for the use of passengers and every one that chooses may turn in to drink from the foot path near which this temple for worship and refreshment has been built.

Many smaller temples, some not larger than an old English arm chair, appear by the way sides all having their images their incense and their devotees. A prodigious population of Europeans principally Portuguese and Chinese is crowded within the prison bounds for such they may be called of this city. According to a census taken three years ago the former reached five and the latter forty thousand. 

Here are thirteen Roman Catholic places of Worship and one English chapel. The foreigners and natives live on good terms together each being governed by their own laws and amenable to their respective authorities. The English reside by the sufferance of the Portuguese and both are only tolerated by the Chinese who claim the territorial right of the soil but allow the strangers to occupy their district as tenants at will. 

The climate is said to be very healthful though extremes of cold and heat are occasionally experienced in the course of the same day the thermometer varying between 84º and the freezing point Ice is sometimes formed the thickness of a dollar Yet there is not we are told a house to be found with a fire place in it. T

he prospect from the church hill on the west of the town the harbour with a thousand ships prakus and boats Chinese and European the seas beyond and numerous islands is very gay and attractive In the distance across the peninsula of separation which the eye may pass though the foot may not we could perceive many Chinese temples towns villages rice grounds gardens and orchards occupying the low and level lands. Above these many naked rocks raised their cragged precipices like skeletons of hills once clothed with soil and verdure which devastating storms and the slow decay of atmospheric influence had in the lapse of ages wholly worn or washed away and left nothing but their fossil rudiments behind.

 

Oct 18 

At a famous Chinese pagoda situated among granite rocks on the sea shore and consisting of various attached temples with places for offerings all in the gaudiest style of nationally fantastic architecture we met a mandarin of high rank coming to worship with a large train of attendants. We were not allowed to follow him into the shrine whither he went to prostrate his magnificence before a deaf dumb blind lame dead stock which a man who durst not have looked him in the face had they met by the way may have carved out of a piece of wood and when he had finished his work gathered up the chips and made a fire with them to boil his paddy pot But we had an opportunity of witnessing the antic rites exhibited by another (...)

Oct 19

Having heard much of a cave here which bears the name of Camoens the Portuguese Homer, we visited it this morning. The gentleman's grounds in which it is situated are curiously and tastefully laid out. The soil which is covered with fertility in every form of tree and plant and flower blooming into beauty or expanding into luxuriance runs in irregular lines and breadths between the masses of bare granite which emboss the surface of the earth and in some places are piled fearfully but firmly one upon another beyond the art or strength of man to have accomplished yet all to the eye that art could desire for the adornment of the place. From various points the peninsula the town the shipping and the harbour south westward are seen in a diversity of agreeable aspects. On the south side of this oriental elysium overshadowed with stately trees is the cave of the poet which is formed by two vast rocks standing four feet apart and roofed with a third enormous mass transversely laid. Between and underneath there is a passage open at either end but closed with a column and arch of masonry at the further extremity In a coved recess upon a rough pilaster against the side of the rock is a bust of him whose name having been given to the cavern needed not to be inscribed under the sculptured memorial of his features. These are sufficiently recognized when it is remembered that Here nobly pensive CAMOENS sat and thought. And what he thought here three centuries ago he has left the world to think upon so long as the language of his country shall be spoken or understood. At Macao, Camoens held the singular office of commissary of the estates of the defunct on the island. During the five years of his residence here he wrote a great portion of his Lusiad in which he celebrated the glory of his countrymen who under Vasco de Gama discovered the south east passage to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. Here too in his almost poetical occupation of standing between the dead and the living that justice might be done to both he acquired a fortune which though small was equal to his wishes. Unfortunately however on attempting to return to continental India in a vessel freighted by himself he suffered shipwreck in the Gulf of Mecon on the coast of Cochin China and there lost all that he had except his life and his poem. The manuscript of the latter he held in one hand while he fought his way through the waves with the other. Being cast friendless and fortuneless on an unknown coast he was nevertheless humanely received and hospitably treated by the natives among whom he remained a considerable time before an opportunity occurred for him to re embark for Goa the metropolis of Portuguese India. (...)

Upon the rock over the cave of Camoens, which we have described, an elegant summerhouse has been erected of an hexagonal form and commanding beautiful views from the different sides especially towards the barrier gate which separates the China in miniature on one part of the island and the Portugal in miniature on the other. On our return we passed by the ruins of an ancient nunnery once of great extent but the whole of which was accidentally destroyed by fire two years ago neither chapel nor cell being spared in the unexpected conflagration. We were not permitted to violate the sacred ground within the exterior walls with our Protestant feet but we could not help remarking how the multitude of iron gratings many of which were collected in rusty heaps and others yet filled their respective places indicated that no attention had been spared which could be necessary either to keep in or to keep out. 

At the time of the calamity there were few nuns in the establishment and it must soon have died a natural death with the last of its inmates no young persons having been permitted to join the sisterhood for several years previously. One person lost her life in the flames the rest about forty were rescued and now reside together in a far humbler habitation. We are pained in walking the streets of this town to see the crippled condition of the Chinese women of the higher order whose feet have been so stunted and cramped in their growth as to be reduced to mere clubs.

The monstrous fashion of their country makes its victims vain of this deformity the effect of which they artificially exaggerate to the eye by making the soles of their shoes the outside of which are white and the heels raised so short that the heel projects two inches backward beyond the shoe while forward the foot terminates in an abrupt stump. And to make this outrage on nature more flagrant their shoes are lavishly ornamented. The gait of these females is any thing but graceful though it must be confessed that a Chinese lady might be as certainly known by her step as the Venus of Virgil. The difficulty and misery of walking are much increased to them by the uneven pavements and many are obliged to avail themselves of the aid of an umbrella to support their decrepitude as they totter and hobble along Macao is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop who has under him nearly a hundred officiating priests.

The papists have two schools one for boys and another for girls containing about a hundred of each sex. Twenty four of the boys, we are informed, are educating for Missionaries in China some of whom are natives of that empire. 

It is remarkable that the Portuguese should still maintain their ground at Pekin and be able to supply vacancies from hence while Christians of every other nation are said to be excluded .

Oct 25 

In the afternoon Mr Daniel, to whom we have been indebted for much kind attention, accompanied us across the harbour to the small island of Lapas. This, like Macao, is a mass of rugged granite intersected or spotted with stripes and patches of verdure and fertility. Our object was to visit a tea plantation nearly at the summit of one (...)