If the average foreign visitor to Macao were asked what historical figure he would associate with the little Portuguese colony, he would probably think only of the poet Luis de Cams, though if he were better informed than most, he might add the painter George Chinnery and the pioneer Protestant missionary, Robert Morrison. Yet there is no lack of interesting characters connected with the “City of the Name of God” during its three and a half centuries of existence, and the present article deals with the story of one of them. Its perusal may help to recall those picturesque days when Macao formed the sole breach in the Great Wall of China's political exclusiveness, save for the “Thirteen Factories” at Canton.

When I left Korea in July of 1934, there were already many indications that Japan was preparing for war on a large scale. “The Manchurian Incident” of September 1931 was the beginning of Japan's inroads into China, which were expanded and intensified until they resulted in the full scale war with China in 1937. The rest is very recent history—Pearl Harbor—Japan's rapid spread throughout the Pacific Islands, and Southeast Asia—Three and a half years of war, the atomic bombs—and surrender aboard the battleship Missouri.

On the 7th of July, 1853, the inhabitants of Japan's capital beheld an amazing sight: four huge and strange ships were steaming up the Bay of Yedo. It was Commodore Perry's fleet arriving on its mission to open Japan. The appearance of these ships was to a considerable part responsible for Perry's success. They made even the most valiant samurai realize the inferiority of his medieval equipment to these huge and fast men-o'-war.

The interest that the Far East holds for Henry A. Wallace has been concretely manifested in recent years by the trip which he took to eastern Siberia and China in the early summer of 1944, and by a pamphlet which he wrote at about the same time. Less well known is the fact that this interest, at least along certain lines, is of long standing, and has played an important part in shaping one aspect of his social thinking.

During the past several years I had heard vaguely that among the agricultural measures carried out by Mr. Wallace while Secretary of Agriculture (1933–40), those grouped under the title of “The Ever-Normal Granary” had been inspired by ancient Chinese practice. Because of the importance of Wang An-shih (1021–86) in Chinese economic thought, and because of the existence of a considerable literature on Wang in English, I had supposed that it was he who might have stimulated these measures. On writing to Mr. Wallace for confirmation, however, he very kindly replied to me as follows (letter of August 24, 1945):

Siam's immediate reaction to the signature on Aug. 11, 1863 of the French treaty of protectorate over Cambodia (see article by author in the previous issue of the Quarterly) was formally to protest to Drouyn de Lhuys in Paris and to Admiral de la Grandière in Saigon, but by December it appeared as if she were reconciled to the fait accompli. The strategy of the Phra Klang was no longer to contest the protectorate but rather to diminish its importance. To this end he pretended to accept it as the means by which France sought to guarantee Cambodia in the future in a state of equilibrium between herself and Siam. In a letter to Grandière he said that no one would deny that Cambodia was an independent state. He expressed his regret for having charged the Admiral with intimidating Norodom. The translation of Norodom's letter, said he, had probably been faulty in giving the impression that he had been intimidated. The Phra Klang further acknowledged that France had succeeded to the place of Annam in Cambodia but at the same time reminded Grandière that Siam had exercised the rights of a suzerain in Cambodia over a long period. This prolonged relationship between Siam and Cambodia entitled Siam to be consulted by France before the making of a treaty, and Siam should have been consulted. It was his hope that the Cambodians would not be encouraged by the establishment of the protectorate to deny to Siam her just rights in Cambodia and that France would continue to respect these rights.

Korea is well recognized as a distinct political unit. The country has a definite area on the surface of the earth and is delimited from the surrounding areas by definite boundaries. These boundaries of water and land have certain characteristics and functions which merit description. Moreover, within Korea geographic divisions are recognized. The provinces have well defined physical boundaries which have been important in compartmentalizing Korea. With the collapse of Japan, Korea was divided between American and Russian military zones by a purely artificial line, the thirty-eighth parallel, North. This imposition of a new boundary within Korea may affect the future activities of the people. The description of its physical character reveals its inadequacies as a boundary.

The Malay Archipelago lies astride the equator, its islands forming a barrier between Pacific and Indian Oceans, while at the same time providing a series of stepping stones between Asia and Australia. Its insular character has offered easy access to foreign influences, but at the same time has favored cultural differentiation.

Decades of propaganda have made students in the Western world so familiar with the Japanese interpretation of the population problem of Japan that even international commissions considered population pressure as an extenuating factor in the successive acts of military aggression by which Japan acquired hegemony over Formosa, Korea, and Manchuria. Few realized that the population pressure within Japan was minimal in comparison with that which already existed in the conquered areas; that, furthermore, Japanese imperial policy tended toward an increasing imbalance between population increase and employment opportunities. The deepening poverty of the Korean masses was often reported, only to be challenged by the citation of production statistics, but the provincialism of the West was such that discussion remained in the realm of charge and countercharge. Few students dared the linguistic hurdles barring factual analysis of the impact of Japanese political, economic, and educational domination on the traditional Korean patterns of fertility, mortality and migration. Whatever the explanation for this myopia of the social scientists of the interwar decades, its conquences were serious. No backlog of technically competent and conceptually mature research on the demography of Korea exists to guide either the analysis of the present or the assessment of the future.

The term “Southeast Asia” is coming steadily into greater use. The termis a convenient geographic expression, but is it anything more? Do the countries of this region have very much in common? Do they have enough in common to suggest the possibility of fruitful cooperation? These questions take on added significance because of the present political upheavals and unrest in nearly all of the countries of this region.

The Chinese are changing,” we heard this said many times even before the last war. Numerous books, mainly popular in nature, have been written on this very theme. Most of us often fail to realize that it is largely an assumption. Unlike other assumptions about the Chinese it has, however, rarely been seriously questioned. To what extent have the Chinese changed? What are the most important factors responsible for their change? What are some of the directions of their change? These and other questions have been variously asked, but have usually been given answers so full of generality that few students of science found them useful.

In the Korean records, the relations between Korea and Japan are termed kyorin, meaning neighborly relations with a neighboring country. That term contrasts sharply with the term used for the relations between China and Korea usually called sadae, serving the great. Korea always demonstrated an attitude of great deference to the Chinese Empire, her communications being often almost servile in tone; whereas, in regard to the Japanese, the position was almost reversed. The Japanese were treated peremptorily; envoys were frequently scorned and their requests considered as coming from a suppliant.

To have a proper appreciation of the return of the territory of Battambang and Angkor to Cambodia as a consequence of the treaty of March 23, 1907 between France and Siam, it is necessary to know something of the history of the ancient Khmer Empire or at least that of the peoples of the Mékong and Ménam valleys since the appearance of the so-called Tai people in the middle Ménam in the eartly part of the twelfth century.

One of the most striking features of the human geography of Indonesia is the lack of demographic balance. The overcrowded islands of Java and Madura are surrounded by the sparsely inhabited Tanah Sabrang. According to the census of 1930, Java comprised 68.7 per cent of the population but only 6.9 per cent of the area, while Tanah Sabrang accounted for 93.1 per cent of the area but for only 31.3 per cent of the total population. Whereas the over-all average population density of Indonesia was 31.9 persons per square kilometer, that of Java was 316.1 and that of Tanah Sabrang 10.7.

The peoples of Indonesia differ widely in culture. All stages of social JL development are represented among them, from the nomad life of the Orang Laut, who wander in their praus upon the sea, and the Orang Kubu, who were, until recently, nomads of the forests in South Sumatra, up to the high forms of social and cultural attainment on the island of Bali, where the arts of the dance, of music, of sculpture, of temple architecture have reached a high peak and people live their lives in a harmoniously organized social order.

As compared with some other countries of the world, Korea is a well mapped land. This brief review lists some of the major maps and sets of maps of the peninsula which are useful to those interested in Korea.

Old Korean maps. Korean scholars for their use in studies of Chinese and Korean literature and for their administrative work if they were chosen for government posts prepared small hand atlases. Some of these atlases have been collected by Western scholars and copies are found in the Library of Congress, American Geographical Society Library, New York Public Library and a number of other map collections. These atlases are usually made up of maps of the world, China, Korea, the eight provinces of Korea, Japan and the Loo Choo Islands.They are hand drawn and copied from some prototype. On their margins or on the reverse side of each map are brief gazetteers or comments. A description of the China-centered world map was given by Homer B. Hulburt, “An ancient map of the world,” Bulletin of the American geographical society, 36 (1904), 600–05. The atlas was described and reproduced in part by H. Cordier in Description d'un atlas Sino-Coréen. Manuscript du British Museum (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1896). A Japanese, Otani, prepared a 37 page catalogue of old Korean maps which was published by the Keijo Imperial University, Seoul, in 1933, but a copy of this has not been found in American libraries.

Late in November, 1867, Anson Burlingame resigned his post as U. S. Minister to China and accepted the invitation of the Tsungli Yamen to take part in China's first diplomatic mission to the Treaty Powers. The minister's party left Peking on November 25, 1867. The second day out of Peking there occurred the exciting adventure described in this letter.

The letter writer was Burlingame's sixteen-year old son, Walter Anson, and the “Dear Grandpa” to whom the letter was written was the Hon. Isaac Livermore of Boston. The letter is reproduced as it was written except for the omission of some irrelevant material at the end. Modern versions of place names, when identifiable, are given in brackets. The spelling and grammar are Walter's.