George Chinnery

With Spink & Son, London, August 1987.

The peninsula of Macau has served as a sanctuary for Westerners ever since the Portuguese were allowed to settle there in the 1550s. They were excluded from the Chinese mainland by a wall built across the isthmus, but their settlement prospered, largely through trade with Japan and Manila. They built forts on the hills for use against the Dutch and English, which by the early 18th century had usurped Portugal's position as the leading Western traders in the East.