Assassination of Governor Amaral in 1848. 403 



peninsula with the mainland, is barely a quarter of a mile in 

 length by 500 feet in breadth. Formerly there was a wall 

 built right across the centre of this tongue of land, which 

 marked the limit of the colony. Here Chinese sentinels used 

 to march to and fro to protect the Flowery Kingdom. This, 

 however, did not prevent the " Macaoistas^'' as the inhabitants 

 of Macao are accustomed to call themselves, from making fre- 

 quent excursions and pic-nic parties to the mainland and the 

 adjacent Chinese villages. On 22nd August, 1848, however, 

 when the then governor of Macao, Dom Joao Maria Ferreira 

 do Amaral, while riding along the narrow part of the isthmus, 

 was set upon by a couple of armed Chinese, torn from his 

 horse, and beheaded, his skull and hand being carried off by 

 the murderers, the Portuguese pulled down the wall and de- 

 stroyed the adjoining Chinese fort, so that not a vestige of 

 either now remains. The government of Macao insisted on 

 the murderers being delivered up, as also on the restitution of 

 the head and hand of the victim, but after the lapse of a year 

 the authorities received an official notification that the mur- 

 derers had been discovered, and on confession of the crime 

 had been executed at Shunteh. The head and hand of the 

 unhappy Amaral were delivered to the Portuguese officials by 

 two Chinese commissioners, and solemnly interred with the 

 other remains. In the course of the corresj^ondence with re- 

 ference to this matter * between the Chinese and Portuguese 

 authorities, it appeared that, owing to certain stringent regu- 



• See "Chinese Repository," vol. x., of October, 1849. 



2 D 2 



