MACAO MANUAL
JESUS, Carlos Augusto Montalto de.
Historic Macao …
Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh, 1902.
8vo, pp. [4], ii, vi, 358; with 12 photographic plates and 1 map; occasional light foxing and toning; very good in later red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, top edge red; some marks at foot of spine, light wear to extremities; ink note to front free endpaper.
First edition of an important history of Macao by the Macanese scholar Montalto de Jesus (1863–1927), a fellow of the Geographical Society of Lisbon and a member of the China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Tracing the history of Macao from the early sixteenth century to the close of the nineteenth, Montalto de Jesus’ work was greeted with acclaim, not least by the Portuguese colonial government, whose rights to Macao he supported in his book. His concluding remarks make for interesting reading: ‘It is sad to realise the actual situation of the colony which should be the proudest European establishment in the Far East. Its silting, neglected harbours threaten to render it soon inaccessible save to junks and launches … As a modernised municipality thoroughly adapted to the requirements of the times, Macao may yet rise to be the Shanghai of South China. Founded and ever maintained without any state support, Macao has, more than any other colony, a right to self-government, specially in view of the present regime being unable to make of the place anything better than the Monte Carlo of China. The excellent geographical position and well-known salubrity of Macao are advantages which grow the more appreciable as Hongkong becomes the more notoriously unhealthy’ (pp. 356-7).
Over time Montalto de Jesus became increasingly disillusioned with the relationship between Macao and Portugal, openly criticising the latter in his second edition of Historic Macao in 1926, leading to the edition being seized and publicly burned. ‘Despite the fact that he was once condemned as a hero-turned-traitor due to the furore provoked by the second edition, his work is indispensable for the study of Portuguese settlement’ (Cheng, Macau: a cultural Janus (1999), p. 25).
Cordier, Sinica 2326.
