MACAO, ma-kote (In Chinese Nyao-inun probably derived from .1 the bight or inlet of the goddess Ama). A Portuguese settle ment near the western entrance to the Canton River, China. 40 miles west of the British colony of Hong Kong: latitude 22° IP N.Jongitude 113' 33' E. (Map: China. D 7). It occupies a small peninsula, formerly an island but now connected by a narrow spit or neck of land, formed by the action of the titles, with the island and prefec ture of lliang-shan, on the north; area four square miles; population. in li96. 75.027. of whom 3698 were Portuguese. and 74,306 Chinese.
The town is built on an irregular tableland, which occupies the central and narrower part of the peninsula and connects several rugged, rapid ly disintegrating granite hills from 200 to 500 feet high on the south. with a few somewhat lower hills on the north. where the land slopes away into an alluvial plain about half a mile wide. Still further north this rapidly narrows into the spit of hind already mentioned. which a barrier was erected by the Chinese in 1573. The place is defended by numerous little needed forts erected in the seventeenth and eigh teenth centuries. Within the walls of one of them—Fo•t Guia—Wa s erected in 1865 the first lighthouse on the China coast. It has a tower 333 feet above the sea.
Macao possesses a cathedral. many churches, a theatre, several hospitals. and charitable insti tutions. but no buildings of special importance or architectural beauty. the most striking object being the facade of the ancient Collegiate Church erected by the .Iesuits in 1594. converted into barracks on the expulsion of the Jesuit; in 1759, and almost totally destroyed by fire in 16'35.
Macao is well situated for trade and flourished until the of Hong Kong as it free portimt the inereasinp• shallowness of its inner harbor (formed on the west by the large island of I'atera), and the exposed position of the equally shallow roadstead on the east, unfit it for a great seaport, modern vessels having to lie off shore from three to six miles. Its trade is now
chiefly in transit with Hong Kong and Canton, and is for the most part in the hands of the Chi nese and Parsis. In 1598 it was valued at $18, 858.000. The climate of :Macao is delightful and many Europeans from Hong Kong and other southern ports are attracted here during the summer. The mean temperature is 74° F., and the annual rainfall about 07 inches, chiefly in July and August.
The Portuguese first settled here in 1577 when certain merchants who had squatted on the island of Lampaco, and who had assisted the Chinese authorities in dealing with pirates, were per mitted to move hither to erect warehouses. Though Portugal sent out a royal Governor in ItkiS, Macao continued to be regarded by the Chi nese as Chinese territory until 1887, when by treaty China relinquished her claim on condition that the land should never be alienated without China's consent. It is now, therefore, governed wholly as a Portuguese colony. All through the stormy days of early foreign relations with China, Macao was a place of safe retreat for both the merchant and the missionary. Here Wells Williams set up his printing press in 1844, and here in the old Protestant Cemetery are the graves of many British and Americans who died at Macao, among them Robert :Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China. CamOes, the Portuguese poet, spent eighteen months of exile here, and on one of the hills is pointed out the grotto in which it is said he composed part of the Lusiad.
:Macao is notorious for its gambling houses, the tax on which provides most of the public revenue, and for its share in the infamous coolie traffic which came to an end only in 1873.