e from among the wilderness of
flowers and sat beside me. He spoke English with a pleasant accent and
we read Bowring's effusion together, as it is engraved on the marble
slab nearby. Scarcely had we finished, and the father was telling me of
Goa in India, when my uncle Robert came from beneath the great banyan
tree and stood before us. The father jumped to his feet, and throwing
back his brown robe, rushed forward toward my uncle with a stilletto
held ready for an upward stroke. Quickly my uncle drew a revolver and
fired--and the father fell dead at my feet.

I

To those who have been in Southern Europe and have seen the towns along
the Riviera, the first view of Macao, as the steamboat approaches from
Hong Kong, gives the impression of having been suddenly transported to
the sunny Mediterranean. Were it not for the colour of the water, and
the Chinese junks, Macao would indeed be a perfect representation of any
of those lovely spots, as she lies along her crescent bay, from Mount
Nillau to Mount Charil, defended by the frowning forts of Sam Francisco
and Our Lady of Bom Parto. Beautiful as this picture is, it was doubly
so in the brilliant sunset colouring of a certain March day, as the
steamer slowly came to her wharf and the passengers stepped ashore
beneath the blue and white flag of Portugal, in this, her farthest
eastern possession. The houses with their delicate washings of pink,
blue, yellow or green, with white stucco ornaments, now golden in the
light, had a warmth of colouring well set off by the dark foliage of
camphor and banyan trees showing above the garden walls. The few
passengers soon dispersed, in chairs or on foot, leaving but one of
their number upon the wharf. He was apparently expecting some one to
come for him, for he refused all offers of assistance from the coolies
and seated himself just outside the gate. American, of medium height,
brown haired and tanned by a tropical sun, Robert Adams was as good a
specimen of Anglo Saxon youth as England herself could boast of. He was
the last descendant of a New England family, which had preserved its
purity for three centuries as unmixed with continental blood as though
the three centuries had been passed in the quiet vales of Devon, instead
of in the New World with its broken barriers.

For three years, after a successful college course, he had been in the
only shipping house in Hong Kong which sickly American commerce of the
day was able to suppo