Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 246

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a league in length; its mid-breath at less than a single mile. The first geometrical delineation of Macao was undertaken and executed by Manoël de Agote, chief factor of the royal Spanish Phillippine Company in China, and Mr. de Guignes, the younger. You will find Agote's map inserted in the collection of drawings, appertaining to the "Account of the Embassy of Lord Macartney to China," and that of de Guignes in his "Voyage á Peking." In 1808, by com- mand of the supreme government, a map was made by Joaquim Bento de Foncéica. The peninsula is nearly surrounded by sheets of water, subject to the influence of ebb and flood from the gulf of China. The regular monsoonwinds, the streams of salubrious water, bursting out at the foot of Charil and Nillau, and the benefit of a well stocked bazar, render Macao wholesome and comfortable, though now and then-but seldom-it is shaken by the convulsive motions of earthquakes; it is oftener visited by dreadful typhoons, a species of hurricanes. * * *

Chinese chronologists have noted down, that in the 30th year of the reign of Kiá-tsing, [1535] one foreign vessel appeared, and in [1537] another on the coast of the gulf of China. The merchants required and obtained permission to land and to raise a few huts for temporary shelter, and the drying of goods, which had been damaged on board the ships. That this accommodation was granted between 1522, when the Portuguese were driven from San-shan, and the time taken up for negociating a reconciliation, is by no means un- likely. During the lapse of eighteen or twenty years, [1537,1557] the Chinese and the Portuguese met again, it seems, for trade, either at Tamáo or Lampacáo. In 1557 the parties concurred at Macao, ber cause the mandarins permitted strangers to fix themselves on a desert island, then known by the denomination of Amangao. Such is the statement Fernaõ Mendes Pinto has given us, in his peregrinations or voyages. This assertion is not contradicted by any of the con- temporary authors, who wrote of the first exploits of their country, men in China. The gentlemen to whom the terms could not be un known were Jesuits, for a few of thein came hither in 1562. With them, Mathew Ricci coming [1582] from India, spent some time, and must have been intimate; being a man of learning, of an enquir, ing spirit—a Jesuit-he naturally enough asked on what footing foreigners stood, in respect to China. Had they been settled by right of conquest, he would undoubtedly have recorded, on the