Macao is beautifully situated upon a small island, near the mouth of the river Tigris, commanding a fine view towards the sea, and was, when I had the fortune to visit it, very clean and neat in its streets and the external condition of its houses--a circumstance the more remarkable, as its inhabitants are Portuguese and Chinese, two of the dirtiest people on the face of the earth: to these, of course, numerous other nations and parts of nations may be added; and among them, a very large proportion of the aristocratic and fastidious English, who prefer spitting in their pocket-handkerchiefs instead of the fire-place or the street; all the Spaniards; all the French in their houses, and food, and furniture; all the Dutch in their persons; all the Russians in every thing; nearly all the Irish and Scotch; and a very respectable modicum of my beloved countrymen, the Yankees, together with the greater part of the natives of the southern states, who, being nursed, brought up, and associating with negro slaves from the cradle to the grave, _smell_ dirty, if they are not.
After an absence of about six weeks, Isabella one morning received a letter from Canton, informing her that the ship would commence "working" down the river that day, or, according to the date of the letter, two days previous, and that she would be off Macao on the second or third day from said date. Accordingly she made all necessary preparations for another and much longer voyage, and after dinner walked down to the water-side, accompanied by her Portuguese friends. They had been on the look-out for nearly half an hour, when a large ship hove in sight, evidently from Canton.
As she approached, steering apparently direct for the town, she suddenly tacked and stood out to sea, or directly away from it. The party had already made out with their glasses that the ship was indeed the Albatross; but poor Isabella, who had seen, on her passage from Mexico, nothing but fair winds, was exceedingly distressed by this last unintelligible manoeuvre. Were they actually going away without her?--the thought was agony. The ship, that was but four miles off when first seen, was now at least eight, and her hull was fast sinking below the line of direct vision. Her companions, who had hitherto been occupied in silently admiring that most splendid effort of human genius, a ship under full sail, were suddenly startled by an exclamation betokening extreme anguish from their lovely friend--"They have gone! they have gone!" sobbed the unhappy girl. The most affectionate kindness, and the most earnest assurances that the apparently unaccountable movement of the ship was no more than was absolutely necessary from the direction of the wind, were equally lost upon her--she "would not be comforted." In a few minutes the Albatross hove in stays (you need not hold your fan to your face, madam), and seemed to approach the shore as rapidly as she had before receded from it.