er. As scholars
know, the "Lusiad" was first published in 1572, is in ten cantos and
1102 stanzas, and is translated into most modern languages. Important
American and English libraries possess it by at least four translators,
each being more or less a standard.

[Illustration: BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO]

The life of the great poet is underlaid with romance and sadness. Born
at Lisbon about 1524, he was given an education fitting him for a
courtier's life, and it was an unfortunate affection for a high-born
donna in attendance upon the queen that caused him to be banished from
the land of his birth. After a roystering career as a soldier in Africa,
he sought shelter at Goa, in India. There he wrote a volume severely
castigating the home government for its official abuses in the East, and
this led to his being treated by his countrymen as a traitor and
outcast. Now in a Goa prison, now at liberty, he at last went to Macao,
and it was there that by his pen he redeemed to some extent his good
name, to the extent certainly of being permitted to return to Lisbon,
and there he died about 1580, poor and neglected. It is insisted that
Camoens's influence and efforts preserved the Portuguese language from
destruction during the Spanish occupation of the neighboring country,
and it is a fact that before 1770 no less than thirty-eight editions of
the "Lusiad" were published in Portugal.

To commemorate the eight or ten years he passed in Macao, a public
garden is named for him, and there, in a grotto of impressive grandeur,
is a bust of the man singing the praises of his natal country as no
other writer in verse or prose has ever succeeded in doing. The bronze
effigy rests on a plinth upon which is engraved in three languages these
lines from the pen of a pilgrim to the Eastern shrine once hallowed by
the presence of the bard of a nation:

Gem of the Orient earth and open sea
Macao! that in thy lap and on thy breast
Hast gathered beauties all the loveliest
O'er which the sun smiles in his majesty.

The very clouds that top the mountain crest
Seem to repose there lingering lovingly.
How full of grace the green Cathyan tree
Bends to the breeze and how thy sands are prest
With gentlest waves which ever and anon
Break their awakened furies on thy shore.

* * * * * *

Were these the scenes that poet looked upon,
Whose lyre though known to fame