We marched out with the honours of war. With profuse courtesy we were escorted out of the police‐station, a sentry shouldering arms to us as we passed; and the sergeant accompanied us to the outer gate, where he parted from us with an elaborate salute.
We reached the hotel about 3.30 a.m. Before nine o’clock I presented myself at the palace, where I interviewed Senhor Carvalhaes and recounted the whole affair to him. He was indignant at the conduct of the police. He told me that we need not attend the court, as he would settle the matter himself. Later on my friend and I saw the British Consul, whom we knew personally, and told him all that had happened. He said that he could not have helped us in the least had we appealed to him. Some time previous an English colonel, in company with several ladies, had been arrested by the police for not removing his hat when a religious procession passed. As this officer happened to be a Roman Catholic, his action was not meant to be disrespectful. He was not released until the British Consul had interviewed the Governor. By a curious coincidence I met this colonel some months later in Seöul, the capital of Corea.
That afternoon Grant‐Smith and I were invited to the Portuguese Naval Tennis Club ground near Flora, the Governor’s summer residence. Carvalhaes, who was present, came to me and told me that the affair was settled. The trumpery charge had been dismissed; and the Indian constable who had arrested Grant‐Smith had been punished with six weeks’ imprisonment. As the unfortunate sepoy had only done what he considered his duty and had been very civil throughout, as well as helping me considerably by interpreting, I begged that the punishment should be transferred from him to the discourteous Portuguese sergeant. On my representations the Indian was released; but I doubt if the man of the dominant caste received even a reprimand.
Our adventure was now common property. We were freely chaffed about the arrest by the Portuguese officers and the British residents present at the Tennis Club. The wife of the Governor laughingly bade one of the English ladies bring up the “prisoner” and present him to her.
When one reflects that this quaint and old‐world little Portuguese colony is only forty miles from Hong Kong with its large garrison, our treatment by its insolent subordinate officials does not say much for the respect for England’s might which we imagine is felt throughout the world.
I had another experience of an arrest in Japan. The spy mania is rife in that country; and no photographing is permitted in the fortified seaports or in large tracts of country “reserved for military purposes.” In the important naval station of Yukosŭka, an hour’s journey by train from Yokohama, an American gentleman and I were taken into custody by a policeman for merely carrying a camera which, knowing the regulations, we had been careful not to use. We found afterwards that our ricksha coolies had given information. I was fortunately able to speak Japanese sufficiently well to explain to our captor that we had no intention of taking surreptitious photographs of the warships in the harbour. I pointed out that as most of these vessels had been built in England it was hardly necessary for a Britisher to come to Japan to get information about them. Our little policeman—with the ready capacity of his countrymen for seeing the feeblest joke—was immensely tickled. He laughed heartily and released us. But shortly afterwards an Italian officer, on his way to attend the Japanese military manœuvres, innocently took some photographs of the scenery near Shimoneseki. He was promptly arrested and subsequently fined forty yen (£4) for the offence. A few days later an Englishman at Moji was taken into custody for the same crime. Moral: do not carry a camera in Japan; content yourself with the excellent and cheap photographs to be obtained everywhere in that country of delightful scenery.
To return to Macao. Its greatly advertised attraction is the famous Chinese gambling‐houses, from the taxes on which is derived a large portion of the revenues of the colony. Most visitors go to see them and stake a dollar or two on the fan‐tan tables. I did likewise and was disappointed to find the famed saloons merely small Chinese houses, the interiors glittering with tawdry gilt wood carving and blazing at night with evil‐smelling oil lamps. On the ground floor stands a large table, at the head of which sits the croupier, generally a very bored‐looking old Chinaman. Along the sides are the players, who occasionally lose the phlegmatic calm of their race in their excitement. On the “board” squares are described, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. On them the money is staked. The croupier places a handful of “cash,” which are small coins, on the table and covers them with an inverted bowl. The number of them is not counted, as he takes them at random from a pile beside him. As soon as all the stakes are laid down, he lifts the bowl and with a chopstick counts the coins in fours. The number left at the end, which must be one, two, three, or four, represents the winning number. The bank pays three times the stake deposited, less ten per cent., which is kept as its own share of the winnings. In a gallery overhead sit European visitors and more important Chinamen who do not wish to mix with the common herd around the table. Their stakes are collected by an attendant who lowers them in a bag at the end of a long string, and the croupier places them where desired. Fan‐tan is not exciting. The counting of the coins is tedious and the calculations of the amounts to be paid out to the winners takes so long that the game becomes exceedingly wearisome.
Other attractions of Macao are the ruins of the old cathedral of San Paulo, built in 1602 and destroyed by fire in 1835, of which the façade still remains in good preservation; and the Gardens of Camoens, with a bust of the famous Portuguese poet placed in a picturesque grotto formed by a group of huge boulders. Camoens visited Macao, after voyaging to Goa and the East by way of the Cape of Good Hope.
In the basements of some of the older houses in Macao are the Barracoons, relics of the coolie traffic suppressed in 1874. They are large chambers where the coolies, to be shipped as labourers to foreign parts, were lodged while awaiting exportation. Among other points of interest near the city is the curious natural phenomenon known as the Ringing Rocks. They are reached by boat to Lappa. They consist of a number of huge granite boulders, supposed to be of some metallic formation, picturesquely grouped together, which, when struck, give out a clear bell‐like note, which dies away in gradually fainter vibrations. Altogether Macao is well worthy of a visit. The contrast between the sleepy old‐world city, which looks like a town in Southern Europe, and bustling, thriving Hong Kong, all that is modern and business‐like, is very striking. For the moneymaker the English colony; for the dreamer Macao.