To return to Macao. Its greatly advertised attraction is the famous Chinese gambling‐houses, from the taxes on which is derived a large portion of the revenues of the colony. Most visitors go to see them and stake a dollar or two on the _fan‐tan_ tables. I did likewise and was disappointed to find the famed saloons merely small Chinese houses, the interiors glittering with tawdry gilt wood carving and blazing at night with evil‐smelling oil lamps. On the ground floor stands a large table, at the head of which sits the _croupier_, generally a very bored‐looking old Chinaman. Along the sides are the players, who occasionally lose the phlegmatic calm of their race in their excitement. On the “board” squares are described, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. On them the money is staked. The _croupier_ places a handful of “cash,” which are small coins, on the table and covers them with an inverted bowl. The number of them is not counted, as he takes them at random from a pile beside him. As soon as all the stakes are laid down, he lifts the bowl and with a chopstick counts the coins in fours. The number left at the end, which must be one, two, three, or four, represents the winning number. The bank pays three times the stake deposited, less ten per cent., which is kept as its own share of the winnings. In a gallery overhead sit European visitors and more important Chinamen who do not wish to mix with the common herd around the table. Their stakes are collected by an attendant who lowers them in a bag at the end of a long string, and the _croupier_ places them where desired. _Fan‐tan_ is not exciting. The counting of the coins is tedious and the calculations of the amounts to be paid out to the winners takes so long that the game becomes exceedingly wearisome. Other attractions of Macao are the ruins of the old cathedral of San Paulo, built in 1602 and destroyed by fire in 1835, of which the façade still remains in good preservation; and the Gardens of Camoens, with a bust of the famous Portuguese poet placed in a picturesque grotto formed by a group of huge boulders. Camoens visited Macao, after voyaging to Goa and the East by way of the Cape of Good Hope.