The colony of Macao is scarcely more important than one of Anthony Hope's imaginary kingdoms, but for the fact that it is on the map, for the area of Portugal's foothold is not more than two or three miles in length, and a half-mile to a mile in width; it is merely the rocky promontory of the tip end of the island of Heung Shan. A wall of masonry with artistic gateway separates the dominion of Portugal from the great Chinese empire--on one side of the portal the law of the Emperor of China is absolute, and on the other the rule of the monarch of Portugal is sacred. In various ways the place and its people remind strongly of a comic-opera setting--but the officer there serving his far-away sovereign discourses with serious countenance of Goa, and Delagoa Bay and Macao as important colonial possessions. Until Hong Kong under the British began to rise as a port and base of commercial distribution, Macao had a considerable trade; but with the decline of business the harbor has silted up until now an oversea ship could not find anchorage. A few industries, like cement making and silk winding, are carried on in the outskirts of the colony, and a suspiciously large amount of prepared opium is shipped, although the closest observer can detect not a poppy under cultivation anywhere on the rocky promontory. The old Protestant cemetery contains many graves of good men and true, such as naval officers and seamen, who have died on Eastern seas, and whose comrades preferred to leave them interred in Christian soil rather than intrust their cherished remains to cemeteries in pagan lands. The headstones of Macao's God's-acre bear name after name once carried with pride on the rolls of the American, British or French naval and merchantman services, and diplomatic and consular titles are recorded on more than one headstone. It is interesting to scale the steps to inspect closely the facade of the Jesuit church of San Paulo, erected some three hundred years ago. Nothing remains but the towering facade, as erect as if reared yesterday, and bearing silent testimony to the courage of the pioneers in the Far East of the Catholic faith. A 'rickshaw journey through every important street, from the center where are the hotel and government buildings to the remotest patches of farming land near the "frontier," consumes scarcely two hours. In the public park you come not infrequently upon statues with tablets informing all observers of the importance and majesty of the home country welded to the peninsula of Europe, once famed for the intrepidity of its navigators and adventurers. If Macao move the visitor to voice an opinion, it is that under certain conditions which you might name the place could be a veritable paradise, but that benevolent Portugal is there conducting an earthly Nirvana for all and sundry of China's affluent sons mustering the ingenuity and influence to gain shelter beneath the flag of dear old Portugal.