The Press. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1912. A FORGOTTEN SEAT OF EMPIRE.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14547, 26 December 1912, Page 6

The Press. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1912. A FORGOTTEN SEAT OF EMPIRE.

■Jii one of her amusing books of remi-

niscences, tho late Lady Broome tells ! a good story of a telegraph operator in tho wilds of West Australia, who wag so excited by tho dramatic discovery of a new golcifield that he wired to the Governor the cryptic message: '■Man picked \ip stouo to throw at "'crow." The London cable in today's issue dealing with tho Goan trouble, is almost equally lacking in context. For the Ranee's revolt, casually referred to. has not yet figured in tho cables. Tho frontier incident arising from it, when, as is alleged, a handful of Portuguese soldiers violated British territory, and committed some outrages, though irritating and seemingly wanton, is not a matter of very grave importance. The sun of Portugal has long sot in the East. But tho mention ' of Goa reminds us that the Portuguese, who were first in the race for the Empire of India, thongh soon outdistanced by Ihitch and French competitors, still, ' oddly and inconveniently enough, hold some 1600 square miles of Indian territory, and fly their flag at Damao Div, as'well as at Goa, on the Malabar ' coast, between the boundaries of Madras and Bombay. By all reports their settlements aro

dreary places nowadays, whero tho owl and tho spider dwell in the ruins or forgotten greatness, yet in a long distant past Goa was a jewel in the crown of Empire. Memories of great names still cling to it. There, early in the 16th century, the famous Portuguese "conquistador," Alfoo.so d'Albuqucrqup, one of the noblest of tho early band of European settlers, established the capital of Portuguese India. To this day remain ruins of the splendid palace built for the residence of Portuguese viceroys in days when for nearly a hundred years the whole commerce of the East passed from that port to Lisbon. There too St. Francis Xavier, "Tho apostle of the Indies," one of the noblest names in the long bead-roll of Jesuit missionaries, established his headquarters, aJid laid tho foundations of the great collego which boro his name, and from which doubtless went forth the ''Goan Padre ,, immortalised by Tennyson in

"Akhar's Dream." There too was the Indian centre of the Inquisition, which left so dark a stain on the annals of the little town. But Albuquerque and Xavier are shadowy figures of a long-distant past, and Goa to-day is a squalid backward town inhabited by natives and Portuguese Eurasians who drag on a monotonous existence on the revenues derived from trade in salt and rice-fields. Frontier incidents occasionally occur, but usually on a loss heroic scale than those mentioned in to-day's cable. For petty thieves seek refuge from English law under tho Portuguese flag, and no doubt petty thiei'os from Goa now and again find refuge in Madras.