hieves being, most probably, conducted to his
premises by some neighbour's watchman.

The streets of Macao being narrow, rough, crooked, and, in general, very
steep, wheel-carriages of any description are entirely unknown. Their
place is supplied by sedan-chairs of Chinese make, carried by Chinese
porters: these may be hired for a dollar per day, and are very
convenient, either in wet or in extremely hot weather. The bearers, like
those of their profession in England, are apt to impose upon strangers,
who must be on their guard till they become acquainted with the ways of
the place.

Macao is infested with loathsome beggars, who scruple not to expose
their ulcerated legs, arms, &c. for the purpose of exciting the
charitable feelings of the passer-by. They make a point of stopping at
the door of any shop in which they see a European, whose ears they
immediately assail with the most discordant noise, by beating a hollow
bamboo with a stick; a mode of annoyance which the law of China allows,
and which is carried on in Macao; but, in the neighbouring British
settlement, an entire stop has been put to it. This, they well know,
will soon cause the shopkeeper to give them a _cash_[21] or two, or his
customer to leave the premises. In China, no native can turn a beggar
from his door, till he has given him something in the shape of charity:
the merest trifle, however, is sufficient to authorize the forcible
expulsion of the applicant. I have seen as little as a tea-spoonful of
rice given on such occasions, when the sulky and grumbling mendicant
took his reluctant departure towards the next door, where he would,
perhaps, meet similar treatment with a repetition of "curses not loud,
but deep."

[Footnote 21: One thousand of these make a dollar, so that the
value of one is less than a quarter of a farthing.]

The Portuguese of Macao made a great ado on Sir Henry Pottinger's
declaring their settlement, in as far as British subjects were
concerned, part of the dominions of the Emperor of China: this, at first
sight, appeared strange to many people besides the Macao citizens, but,
when the subject received due consideration, Sir Henry was found to be
quite correct in the view he had taken of it. Macao is _not_ a
Portuguese settlement, in the proper sense of that word, but only a
territory leased to that Power on certain terms, for which an annual
tribute or rent is paid to this day. The Chinese laws are in force
here; the