Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/380

290 over the hatchways leading to the lower deck, where hundreds of Chinese were padlocked down—for some of these might be pirates. This has been the custom since an affair that occurred on this or one of the other boats.

It happened that on one occasion the Captain and passengers being at lunch, and only one seasick passenger left on deck, a crowd of Chinese pirates, disguised as passengers, rushed the deck, shot the sea-sick passenger ere he could give the alarm, and killed and wounded the Captain and others as they rushed up, then imprisoned the survivors and looted the ship. It was an arranged thing, and they had junks in waiting, so they escaped. Some were afterwards caught and beheaded and some imprisoned.

Captain Clarke kept a sharp look-out on all junks which came near us.

The harbour of Macao looked very pretty as we entered it—the sweep of it is supposed to resemble a miniature Bay of Naples. As a harbour it is now no use, as it is silting up. Macao is a small, rocky peninsula connected by a sandy causeway with the Island of Heung Shan, and is on the west shore of the entrance of the estuary of the Chu-kiang or Pearl River, which again is joined farther north by the Si-kiang or West River, which rises in Yunnan, flows east for 600 miles through Kwangsi province, and at Wuchan Fu enters Kwantung, and then after 200 miles forms the Chu-kiang. Now you know all about it, and that "Kiang" means "river," so, like me, you can speak a little Chinese.

Portuguese traders founded Macao in 1557; the Dutch under Admiral Rezersy van Derzton attacked it in 1622, but were repulsed. The Portuguese paid the Chinese an annual rent of 500 taels up to 1848, but in that year Governor