The Portuguese ladies at Macao are, for the most part, possessed of but few attractions. The dark-eyed, beautiful damsels, the destroyers of so many hearts in Lisbon, are here seldom to be met with. The lower class may be seen covered by their mantilla, walking at a funereal pace to mass or confession; the only duties for which a Portuguese female considers it worth while to take exercise. The higher class are carried from one street to another by negroes, in clumsy and tawdry palankeens. I have before observed that Macao signifies in the Portuguese language a mallet, and the name has been given to it from the resemblance of the peninsula to that instrument; the sandy isthmus which runs out, connecting the elevated spot upon which Macao has been erected to the main land, resembles the handle. At the distance of about half-way across this sandy neck of land the Chinese barrier is erected, beyond which no European is suffered to pass. The morning previous to my departure from Macao, I visited another Chinese temple, situated near the sandy isthmus. It had nothing to recommend it for picturesque or romantic beauty; its interior was more extensive than the one I had previously visited. Passing through the temple, numerous granite rocks were scattered about the brow of a hill in their natural state, and upon many of them were Chinese inscriptions, probably moral sentences, which the Chinese are so fond of teaching, but never trouble themselves about practising. Near the road side, and upon the summit of the hill, on the brow of which the inscriptions on the granite rocks just mentioned were remarked, were several small cone-shaped buildings, resembling somewhat the eastern Linguams. For what purpose they had been erected, I could not gain any information; there were three a short distance apart, close to the road side, and another of large size situated in a very conspicuous spot upon the summit of a hill. The Linguams, if they may be so named, are rather more than five feet high, and constructed of brick plastered over; in one the plaster had fallen off, leaving the brick exposed, evidently showing that not much attention was paid to them. At the base of the cone was a small square hole. The one situated upon the lofty summit of a hill, looked like a white conical land-mark; I did not ascend to examine it. CHAPTER VII. The jesuits’ church and college of San José—The gardens—Sail from Macao for Singapore—Pass Pedro Blanco—Island of Singapore—The town—Treaty for the cession of the island to the British—Hills—Salubrity of the settlement—European burial-ground—Vicinity of the settlement—Government hill—Grand prospect—Commercial prosperity—New roads.