any of the other harbors or anchorages in the neighborhood, and, being the
rendezvous of the opium vessels belonging to the merchants of Canton,
possessed the additional advantage of constant communication with the
neighboring towns.
The Commodore, having thus disposed of his squadron, found it convenient,
in order to arrange the accumulated results of his voyage to Japan
and the Lew Chew and Bonin islands, to take a house at Macao, for facilitating
his own business, and for the accommodation of the surveying officers
and artists of the expedition to bring up their work. A hospital was also
established in the town under the superintendence of the fleet surgeon.
The Commodore found the station he selected much more advantageous
than it would have been on board either of the ships, or at Canton or
Hong Kong; as Macao was an intermediate, or rather central point between
those two places and Cum-sing-moon, and where, with mails arriving
and departing daily, and steamers and dispatch boats almost hourly, he was
enabled to hold communication with them all.
The hospital soon had a goodly number of inmates sent from the different
ships. Scarcely an officer or man escaped an attack of fever of more or less
severity, and some few deaths occurred, among which were those of Lieutenant
Adams, of the Powhatan, and the master of the band belonging to
the steamer Mississippi. The Commodore himself, worn out by duties which
were more than usually heavy, in consequence of the supervision of the
labors in connection with the accumulated results of the expedition, and
large correspondence that became necessary from the apprehensions of the
danger entertained by the American merchants as likely to result from the
disturbed state of China, was finally prostrated and suffered from an attack
of illness. Notwithstanding, however, the work of the expedition was not
allowed any remission. The surveying officers continued their hydrographical
labors, and succeeded in preparing fair copies of the charts which had
been constructed during the late cruise. The artists and draughtsmen
were constantly engaged in making and completing their sketches and drawings,
of which more than two hundred were finished. The several apparatus
of the magnetic telegraph, the Daguerreotype, and the Talbotype were
arranged and put in full operation.
Macao had always hitherto been considered a remarkably salubrious
place, and chosen as the usual summer resort of families from Canton and
Hong Kong; but the epidemic which prevailed in 1853 proved that it was
not always to be exempt from those destructive visitations of disease to
which the cities and towns of the east are so much exposed. During the
time that so much sickness prevailed at Macao, Canton was comparatively
exempt. In fact, this latter city is looked upon, and justly so, as a healthful
place when compared with other cities in the neighborhood; and this
seems more remarkable, when it is considered that the inhabitants are con