176 NOTES OF -TEAVEL IN CHINA. 



kept up for the benefit of the young men in their employment, who 

 after a busy season are permitted to take a few days to themselves, 

 which can be more agreeably passed in Macao than elsewhere. So 

 great is the variety of fish in the waters surrounding Macao, that 

 according to the statements of old residents, there is a separate fish 

 for every day in the year. 



Since the expiration of the charter of the East India Company, 

 Macao has been gradually declining, but she would have revived 

 during the wsr between England and China, in 1842, had not a 

 spirit manifested itself which defeated its own object. At that time 

 foreigners were obliged to leave Canton, and take up their abode 

 and transact their business on this island, and all foreign vessels 

 resorted to its harbour. If instead of imposing heavy duties on foreign 

 commodities, and harbour dues upon the shipping, the port had 

 then been free, Macao would not have been obliged to transfer to 

 Hong-Kong, the short lived distinction which circumstances 

 involuntary granted her. Her rulers now feel the weakness of 

 their policy, which evinces its effects in the harbour, the streets, and 

 the buildings. Only native craft disturb her waters, the streets are 

 desolate, and many of the India Company's Hongs are untenanted. 

 Those merchants who have private residences at present, will not 

 retain them after their lease expires, and thus by the short sighted 

 policv of the governing powers of Macao, other islands are destined 

 to outnumber her in population, and exceed her in wealth. Never- 

 theless, Macao must still be a place of interest to every foreigner, 

 and sacred in the memory of Portugal. Her pure air and solitary 

 retreats were once enjoyed by an exile, who conscious of his wrongs, 

 still restrained the pen of calumny, and painted in immortal verse, 

 the glory of his fatherland. The cave of Campens, in which was 

 composed a portion of the famous Lusiad, can be seen on this 

 island ; and when the stranger looks upon the cenotaph erected in 

 its centre by order of the country which had exiled him, — calling 

 to rememberance that the mighty spirit of the poet in whose 

 honour it was tardily reared, had perished in the streets of 

 Lisbon, driven forth by hunger, neglect and sorrow ; and that no 

 finger can point to the resting place ot Portugal's greatest hero ; 

 he loses all sympathy for the oppressor in contemplating the suffer- 

 ings of the^victim, and feels that this. — like so many other national 

 tributes to genius, — is rather a memorial of the nation's shame. 



