West; and the way to obtain it the most simple
imaginable, depending on one sentence, O-me-to-fuh. Amida Buddha!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: One of the causes which have led the Chinese themselves
into great errors with regard to the ancient state of their country, is
the having given to their ancient characters the acceptations which they
did not acquire until later times.

The characters which are now translated by the words emperor, province,
city, palace, meant no more in former times than the chief of a tribe, a
district, a camp, a house. These simple meanings did not flatter their
vanity sufficiently, and they therefore preferred employing terms which
would represent their ancestors as rich and powerful, and their empire
vast and flourishing in the _first year_ of its foundation as if _by
magic_.--M. DE GUIGNES' LITTERA.]

[Footnote 2: This presumption was overruled by an all-wise Providence,
by the subsequent discovery of some books of Confucius in repairing an
old house.--MONTGOMERY MARTIN.]

[Footnote 3: Anno Domini 297.]

[Footnote 4: Anno Domini 924.]

[Footnote 5: The Chinese made paper about 350 years before Christ; and
Confucius, about a century before, wrote his admirable maxims on a
bamboo, with a stylus.]

[Footnote 6: The mother of Che-Hwang-te had been a concubine of a
merchant of Ho-nan.]

CHAPTER IX.

Christmas and the New Year in Macao--Removal of remains of Da
Cunha--The Dead give place to the Quick--Chinese manner of
Fishing--A new principle in Hydraulics--Inspection of Macao
Militia--An ancient Cemetery--Arrival of the new Governor,
Cardoza--Under way for Manilla--Fetch up at Hong-Kong--Another
Start--Island of Luconia--Bay of Manilla--Earthquake--Discovery
and Settlement of the Philippines--Description of Manilla--The
Calzada--A puppet-show.

Christmas was passed by me a valetudinarian at Macao, the ship having
left me there, in hospital, on her passage from Hong-Kong to Whampoa.

On Christmas eve I visited the different churches, all Roman Catholic of
course. They were brilliantly illuminated, and filled principally with
females, who knelt upon the bare floors whilst services, suitable for
the occasion, were performed. All the churches were opened, and in that
of San Augustinho heard some pretty good singing by boys. The old year
was allowed to pass out and the new year come in without much _eclat_ at
Macao, indeed they are a dull set--the Macanese, an