Directory_and_Chronicle_1941 — Page 1003

MACAO

門澳 Ou-mun

皎馬 Ma-kau

Macao is situated in 22 deg. 11. min. 30 sec. N. latitude, and 113 deg. 32 min. 30 sec. E. longitude, on a rocky peninsula, renowned, long before the Portuguese settled on it, for its safe harbour for junks and small vessels. The Portuguese, who had already settled on the island of Lainpacao, and frequented for trading purposes Chin-chew, Liampo, Tamao, and San-choan (St. John's Island, where Francis Xavier, the celebrated missionary, died), were conceded the use of Macao in 1557. Shortly after their arrival in this part of the world, the Viceroy of Canton, powerless himself to perform the task, offered to present the barren peninsula to the Portuguese if they should succeed in subduing the notorious pirate, Shan-si-lau, who styled himself "King of the islands of Canton" and, with his force of 12,000 men and 100 armed junks and lorchas, levied tribute as far as the mouth of the Yangtsze and even went so far as to blockade the. port of Canton. The Portuguese manned and armed a few vessels and succeeded in raising the blockade of Canton and clearing the seas. The town of Macao soon after- wards began to rise, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries trade flour- ished there, the difficulty of residence at Canton greatly contributing towards it. The East India Company and the Dutch Company had establishments in Macao.

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The Portuguese paid the mandarin of Heungshan a rental of 500 Taels a year for the occupation of Macao until Governor Ferreira do Amaral in 1848 refused to pay the rental and longer, and forcibly drove out the Chinese Custom-house, and with it every vestige of Chinese authority. The bold stroke cost him his life on 22nd, August, 1849, for he was waylaid and barbarously murdered near the Barrier of Porta do Cerco, and his head was taken to Canton. This political assassination synchronised with an attack on Macao by the mandarin's troops who were repulsed by Amaral's doughty lieutenant Mesquita. Eventually the sovereignty of Portugal over Macao was formally recognised by China in the Treaty signed with Portugal in 1887.

In November, 1901, an Envoy Extraordinary arrived from Portugal, his mission being to arrange with the Chinese Government for a delimitation of the boundary of the Colony. The line of demarcation submitted by the Envoy included certain islands which the Chinese Government refused to acknowledge as being part of the Portuguese colony, and the Envoy, while not successful in gaining this point, secured a concession for a railway from Macao to Canton. The convention, however, did not meet with the approval of the Côrtes at Lisbon, and Senhor, Branco came to the East again in 1904. In November a new agreement was arranged with the Chinese Government, but the Government at Lisbon regarded the terms as far from satisfactory, and refused rati- fication. In accordance with the Treaty of 1887 the Governments of China and Port ugal in 1909 appointed Commissioners to delimitate the boundaries of Macao and its Dependencies, but China would not admit Portugal's title to half the territory claimed, and the Portuguese Commissioner interrupted the negotiations after they had been in progress nearly four months and proposed referring the dispute to The Hague Arbit ration Tribunal. China definitely refused to agree to this, and so the position remains as it has always been. In 1910 the Portuguese authorities asserted their jurisdiction over the island of Colowan by clearing the place of a piratical horde which had terrorised the whole delta.

The colony is separated from the large island of Heung-shan by an arch, built in the year 1870, at the end of the narrow; connecting sandy isthmus. The principal topographical features of Macao are two principal ranges of hills, one running from south to north, the other from, east to west. which may by considered as forming an angle, the base of which leans upon the river or anchoring place. On the lofty mount eastward, called Cacilha, is a fort, enclosing the church of Na. Sra. de Guia, and westward is Lillau, on the top of which stands the hermitage of Na. Sra. da Penha; entering a wide semi-circular bay, called Praia Grande, which faces the east, on the