The Captain and Chief Engineer of the
boat, who, it is almost superfluous to add, were of course both Clyde
men, like good Scots deplored this Sabbath-breaking; but like equally
good Scots they admitted how very lucrative the Sunday traffic was to
the steamboat company, and I gathered that they both got a commission
on this.
The old town of Macao is a piece of sixteenth and seventeenth century
Portugal transplanted into China. It is wonderful to find a southern
European town complete with cathedral, "pracas," fountains, and
statues, dumped down in the Far East. The place, too, is as
picturesque as a scene from an opera, and China is the last spot where
one would expect to find lingering traces of Gothic influence in
carved doorways and other architectural details. As far as externals
went Camoens, the great Portuguese poet, can scarcely have realised
his exile during the two years, 1556-1558, of his banishment to Macao.
He most creditably utilised this period of enforced rest by writing
_The Lusiads_, a poem which his countrymen are inclined to over
rate. All the familiar characteristics of an old Portuguese town are
met with here, the blue and pink colour-washed houses, an ample
sufficiency of ornate churches, public fountains everywhere, and every
shop-sign and notice is written in Portuguese, including the
interminable Portuguese street names.
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