s are passed, and from them the traveler obtains a fair
idea of the rustic life of China. Now and again a pagoda is visible,
crowning an elevation, and recalling childhood's school-book
illustrations. You jump at the convenient conclusion that these
structures of from six to ten stories had to do with the religion of the
country, which surmise is erroneous, for the towers were reared to guard
the geomantic properties of their respective neighborhoods, and in
reality are relics of a bygone age of superstition.

The pioneer European settlement of the Far East--Macao--is at last in
sight, and it presents immediately a visual contrast to Canton, by
reason of its picturesque situation. There is something about the
promontory that takes you back to Southern Europe, to the summer sea and
the shores of the Mediterranean, perhaps to a brightly situated fishing
port of the littoral of the Riviera. As the vessel rounds the cape and
comes to anchor in the pretty crescent formed by the Praia Grande,
flanked by terraced houses colored with minor tints of blue and yellow,
you know instantly that this stranded Eastern rainbow is Monte
Carlo--no, the Oriental equivalent of the beauty-spot of Latin Europe.

Macao is a little place large with history, in fact is an atom of Europe
almost lost to public gaze by the vastness of Asia, and as much a part
of the kingdom of Portugal as Lisbon itself. As the most enterprising
maritime and trading nation of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese
were the first to sail the Eastern seas, the first to open up
commercial relations between Europe and the great empire of China, and
holding the monopoly of all Oriental trade until the end of the
eighteenth century. Owing to the prospect of increased gain, following
on this European invasion, the waters of the Pearl River estuary soon
became infested with pirates, which the Portuguese magnanimously
assisted the Chinese government to subdue, and, in return, it is
recorded, received in 1557 the cession of the rocky peninsula on which
the Portuguese colony now stands. More than once Portugal had to
maintain her rights by recourse to arms, but the colony has remained
Portuguese without interruption for more than three hundred and fifty
years, and is a hoary patriarch beside infantile British Hong Kong and
German Tsing-tau. The oldest lighthouse on the coast of China is that of
Guia, standing sentinel on the highest point of the Portuguese colony.

The colony