am not sure
on the point,) were, as usual, apprenticed out as domestic servants to
families in want of them. I gave the admiral on the China station full
particulars of this event; and hope that he will cause a sharp look-out
to be kept on the Portuguese vessels returning from Timor next autumn.

The market of Macao is well supplied with game, butchers' meat, pork,
poultry, fruit, and vegetables: all these might be had on very
reasonable terms, if the Chinese seller were allowed his own way; but,
before he reaches the market from his home, he is taxed and re-taxed by
every petty rogue of a Mandarin whose station he may happen to pass on
his way. On reaching the market, he is taxed again, and is compelled to
sell to the general dealer, who squeezes him to the last _cash_, and
re-sells at an exorbitant profit to the Englishman's _compradore_, who
charges his master, on a moderate calculation, four times what he gave;
so that, by the time the Englishman's dinner is on his table, it costs
him no trifle. Game is plentiful only in winter, which sets in in
November. Wild ducks, teal, pheasants, partridges, snipe, with an
occasional deer, are to be had, all fat and in prime order, at this
season. The Chinese bullock is a compact little animal, and, when
fattened, yields remarkably good beef.

Macao, like all Portuguese towns, is well stocked with priests; and were
we to judge from the number of them who are seen parading the streets,
as, also, from that of women constantly bending their steps church-ward,
the inhabitants must be a very devout race. From seven in the morning
till dusk, the streets are rarely free from church-going ladies; many of
them followed by Negro slaves carrying their kneeling-rugs and
prayer-books. One of the greatest nuisances in Macao is the perpetual
ringing or tolling of church-bells, day and night: as soon as one stops,
another begins; and the sleep-killing ding-dong is kept up at a rate
that, in the warm nights of summer, is enough to drive a stranger
frantic.

Every house has a watchman, who goes his rounds from eight in the
evening till daylight next morning, and, every half hour, beats a hollow
bamboo with a heavy stick, making noise enough to disturb the soundest
sleeper. This keeping a watchman is neither more nor less than paying
black-mail. Any housekeeper who should seek to evade the imposition by
doing without a guardian of the night, would infallibly be plundered in
a week or two, the t