1950-10-03 — Page 5

A century ago, Sir John Bowring, the British diplomat, scholar and hymn- writer, visited Macão and wrote of it enthusiastically:

Gem of the Orient Earth and open

sca,

MACAO, that in thy lap and on

thy breast

Hast gathered

loveliest,

beauties all the

Which the sun shines an in his

majesty:

The very clouds that top each moun-

tain crest

Seem to repose there, lingering

lovingly.

How full of grace the green Catha-

yan tree

Bends to the breeze -and now thy

sands are prest

With gentle waves which ever and

anon

Break their awakened furies on thy

shore.

Were these the scenes that poel look-

ed upon,

Whose lyre though known to famé'.

knew misery more ?

They have their glories, and earth's

diadems

Have naught so bright as genius'

gilded gems.

Thus did he pay tribute to the mem- ory of Luiz de Camoens, Portugal's im- mortal bard, who according to tradition was among those who took part in the establishment of Macao as long ago as 1557, and the, Grotto in which the Por- tuguese poet liked to sit is still one of the show-places of the little colony,

ORIGIN OF MACAO

The Portuguese learned of the exis- tence of the place when, bnly eleven years after Vasco da Gama reached India, in 1498, Afonso de Albuquerque, Portugal's great pro-consul In Asia, reached Malacca. It went by its poetic Chinese name of Hoi Klang (Mirror of the Sea), a name which still survives among the people of South China. Two years later, in 1513, Jorge Alvares was despatched to China, and on Lintin Island, within sight of Macao, he erec- ted a stone pillar with the Portuguese coat of arms, to commemorate_the_visit of the first "Portuguese to the coast of China.

Portuguese traders began visiting China, and they had adventures in many places, on the coasts of Kwangtung, Fukien, and Chekiang. Many celebrat- ed names figure among those who visit- ed this region, and some of them must have seen Macao. St. Francis Xavier was one of these. He did not land at Macao, but did so on Shanchuan (St. John's Island), some sixty miles west of Macao, where he died on Decem- ber 3rd, 1552.

Trade, flourished among the islands at the mouth of the West River Delta, and at last in 1557 the Portuguese rout- ed a band of pirates, that had been marauding along the China coast. The Chinese decided to let the Portuguese build their city on the arid, almost de- serted tongue of land which is now known as Macao.. The name comes from the old temple which. antedates the coming of the Portuguese, built by Chinese fisherfolk in honour of the goddess Leung Mo, from the diminu- tive of which, A Ma, the Portuguese gave the name to the place, with the stuffix Kao, meaning "port", to read Amacao, the prefix "A" being dropped and the name Macao remaining.

SOCIAL SERVICE

From its earliest days Macao became a centre of religious and humanitarian service. The Jesuits built their hostel there in 1562, and it grew into the great College of St. Paul, an important uni- versity from which scholars were sent to all the Portuguese Mission "flelds in the Far East Japan, China, Annam, Slam, Laos, Cambodia, Solar, Timor, and Korea. In 1569 the Santa Casa da Misericordia (The Holy House of Mercy) was established, a charitable institution which survives to the pre-. sent day and which set up, as long ago

Ma Kok Temple which antedates the arrival of the

Portuguese.

Grotto of Camoens, the national.

poet of Portugal.

Ruins of the Church of St. Paul.

The

Holy House of

Maray, founded 1569,. one of

the oldest charity Institu

tione in the world,

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