MACAO.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 867, 20 November 1916, Page 6

MACAO.

» MONTE CARLO OF THE I ORIENT. FLOURISHING FANTAN ! MONOPOLY. AMONGST THE CELESTIAL ADVENTURERS. In my China paper the following brief telegram, headed "Macao," i lakes flic eye:— ! F.leven lenders have lieen received for the .fantan gambling monopoly for a period of ! live veins, dating from the expiry of the present monopoly on June :10, 1917, of which .six are for over ? 1,000,000 :i year. The highjest is $1,200,000, and the lowest ?fllo,ooo a year, as compared with the present payi incut of if(iO:!,(IOO per annum. | Evidently the fantan business flourishes at Macao. But what is iMacao, and what is fantan? Those | who love a resounding label speak of j Macao as the Monte Carlo of the Orient. M. Blanc will not he flat- | tered, and he who has not set eyes i upon Macao will not be illuminated, j Macao is to Hong Kong as Margate ;to London, says H. Sachen in the "Manchester Guardian." It is some .forty miles away, and a trifle further from Canton. On Sundays you .may make the return trip in a day. IThe river steamers are capacious and 'comfortable. You can eat as well aboard them as ashore, with the same excellent service of Chinese "boys"— j surely the best in the world except ; the almost extinct old-fashioned i English waiter, —and if you travel by ! night you may get a cabin which | the P. and O. would not despise. And 'there are suggestions of romance. •On the to]) deck the pilot's quarters .are walled off with steel bars, and two armed sentries train]) up and down. The West River and the CanTon River swarm with pirates—there i are those who say that every dweller jby the river is a pirate when his other business is slack—and one of [their pleasant devices is to come aboard as passengers and seize the I ship. 1 have heard British skippers [ —most of the ships in Chinese [waters are officered by Britons —prefer the room of the armed guards imposed upon them by the Hongkong Government to their company. Down below, where the Chinese are gatherled, there are more sentries. Here .the Chinese lie with their copious | belongings, packed, odorous, but well mannered. It is not odours alone [you may find there. In Chinese I towns there is usually some epidemic ,■ disease. When I came back from Canton we had smallpox aboard, and I in the season you may have plague. The Chinese take such things calmly. I They will -nse as a pillow the body I of a fellow-passenger dead of plague. ) A Picturesque Journey. I I 'I he journey up the ("anion River ! to Macao is one of the fine things I near to the traveller in China who jhas no taste for far ventures into j the interior. There are not many [such; the China in easy reach of : steamer or train is deficient in the !picturesque. Hong Kong Harbour, ! murmurous with the great ships of j the world, shepherded by the green I height of the Peak and menaced by the stark hills of Kowloon, is a jewel of beauty, at night not less than at [day, when the villas sparkle in the •| black darkness and the scythe of the j searchlights sweeps across land anil | water. From Hong Kong to Macao is ia maze of islands, bare, rocky, many [of them extensive, some rising to ! goodly heights. The waterway is alive with steamers, tugs, junks, with ' beautiful lines and graceful sails. Suddenly you make a bend of the ■ river, and a gleaming of white buildings on a green island hill takes the eye. That is Macao, and rememberiling Macao's reputation you recall the [vision of Monte Carlo from the sea. ,'As you swing into the harbour the (glory of the first picture fades. The j houses on the quay have the bedraggled air customary to the purlieus of ports, though their yellows Hand pinks and blues of the Latinism .of their inscriptions tells of Portugal ;■ rather than of China. -| A Well-groomed Town, ! [ In war time you first report your- , self to the police. Then in a ricksha 11 up steep cobbled lanes from the hart hour to the main street. Two tilings .j you notice on your way, two things .intimately connected: those lanes are clean, and on either side are gay .mlded houses bearing the inscription 'i"First-class gambling saloon." (If i there be any gambling saloons other than first-class, conscious of their I humble station, they do not parade -themselves.) Macao is one of the II best-groomed places in the Far East. I:The chief streets are wide, clean, jjwell engineered, and well maintainjed. The public buildings are handsome and spacious. There are charni--1 ing gardens and trees everywhere. 1 j The architecture has character and 'quality. On the China coast, of the I j newer comers from the west, only -I the Germans have tried to transplant • their native architecture, without .'heed to the genius of the place, so J that the average German settlement Jis terrifyingly reminiscent of the j KuiTurstendamin. The Portuguese "!brought with them to Macao the ".classic tradition of light and space 'land colour and symmetrical form '! from their southern land, and in ■| some three or four centuries it has -'adjusted itself to the spirit of its new f j home. There are villas—you may , hire them at incredibly low rales—- , will) gardens down to the sea, rich [with tropical flowers and fruit, and with cool arbours and fables of carvjed stone, where, amid the murmur ■i of bee and bird and the hipping of 'j the la/.\ tide, a man may forget that >ihe lias gone into exile for gold. •[Macao is the only place in the Far sEasl where the European does not , look a restless parvenu. I But the empty harbour, the still . j streets, the peace and repose have j their counterpart in the first-class '.gambling saloons, which, as at Monte ' I Carlo, provide tlie Government with I the revenue which sustains them.

The Portuguese Government of Macao is paternal. It dislikes to tax. and it likes to give its subjects the civic amenities. It has squared this political circle by establishing a gambling monopoly, which is usually purchased by a Chinese syndicate. The revenue thus secured is considerable and increasing—a tender of 81,266,6(50, with silver at its present price, is £l3o,ooo—and it is pure profit to the community, for the Macanese, like the Monagese, are forbidden lo enter the gaming saloons except on high festivals. Nor, assuredly, do the Chinese investors in the franchise lose. Nothing Wasted on Trimmings. They are a practical folk, and they waste nothing on trimmings. There are no marble corridors, panelled halls, well-equipped reading rooms, magnificent footmen at Macao. The door admits you to a dirty staircase. Mounting it you find yourself in rather a large room, about as clean and luxurious in its fittings as the living room of a poor Chinese family; for that is what it is. To one side, immediately under a big rectangular cockpit in the ceiling, is a good-sized table, surrounded by Chinese—Chinese gamblers. Chinese croupiers. The European does not hall here. He mounts another flight and finds himself in a similar room above, perhaps a little more cleanly. Hound the cockpit is a rail, and round that little chairs and tables. As he enters, a portly Chinese, who speaks quite fair English, welcomes him courteously, offers him lunch, wine, whisky, fruit, sweet-meats, the inevitable melon pips dyed all the colours of the rainbow, any refreshment he pleases, and all at the expense of the house. ! Seated at the rail, you may look down through the cockpit upon the table, study your Celestial eo-adven- ! hirers, and follow the game. There could hardly be a simpler game. At the right end of the table is an aged [Chinese with a great pile of brass discs in front of him. He takes a couple of handfuls and covers them | with a bowl. He will count them | out in fours, and the game is (o guess I what the residue will be—o, 1, 2. or 13. You back your fancy to any amount you please, and you need not plunge. There are similar varieties of selection, with varying odds, to those you may enjoy al roulette. A Chinese "boy" lets your money down through the cockpii in a little basket |by a string, and the croupier puts it on the number of your choice. Such is fanlan at the Monte Carlo of the Orient. It is simplicity itself, and I believe it is quite fairly conducted. Of course, as in all gambling establishments, the proprietor makes his profit by offering rather less than the mathematically just odds. You emerge from this drab home of chance into the brilliant light of a spring afternoon. Mounting the hill, you see once again the waters strewn with islands, the impressive hills, the battered facade of a cathedral, the antique forts. You are hack in the Macao that was, the Macao where the European first planted a solid foot in this world centuries ago, and where Camoens shaped to immortal verse the adventurous epic of his heroic race.