When our Coral Expeditions cruise arrived in the town of Tobelo on the northwestern arm of the island of Halmahera in October 2018, the Dukono volcano was erupting ash. This should not have been a surprise since research shows that the volcano has been erupting almost continuously since 1978.
The Dukono volcano as seen from the Coral Discoverer
A rift in the earth’s mantle has caused a sea floor spreading zone between the islands of Sulawesi and Halmahere, causing subduction and related volcanic activity along the edge of both islands. There are sixteen volcanoes on the Halmahera volcanic arc, many of which are still active, and an equal number along the Sangihe volcanic arc.
This seafloor map shows the central ridge, like the larger mid-Atlantic ridge, formed by the intrusion of oceanic magma. This intrusion causes spreading of the sea floor and the related subduction zones are shown by the seafloor trenches developed on each side of the central ridge . The water filled sediments that are subducted into the earths interior then become superheated, melt the surrounding rocks, and cause the volcanic activity.
The related volcanoes can be best seen on this topographical map of Halmahera which shows a line of volcanoes formed along the western side of the island, including the clove islands of Ternate, Tidore, Moti and Makian which are offshore.
The Dukono volcano is only 10 km from the town of Tobelo. While we were there it was continuously erupting ash, but fortunately the wind was blowing to the northeast and away from the town.
The Dukono volcano as seen from the town of Tobelo
Sandalwood is heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods retains its fragrance for decades. Both the wood and the oil produce a distinctive fragrance that has been highly valued for centuries and it is often cited as one of the most expensive woods in the world.
Lord Ganesha carved from sandalwood
Sandalwood is indigenous to the tropical belt of peninsular India, the Malay Archipelago and northern Australia. In Indonesian the main distribution was on the islands of Solor, Sumba and Timor. Sandalwood is mentioned in one the oldest pieces of Indian literature, the epic Ramayana story, dating from the fourth century BC. However, Indian foresters question whether sandalwood is native to India and suggest that because of its distribution it was probably introduced from Indonesia many centuries ago.
Santalum album (Sandalwood)
Many Indian Hindu families will keep a block of sandalwood in their home which when rubbed produces a white paste and is then applied as a dot to the forehead to promote concentration during prayer and meditation. The Chinese ritually burn ‘Joss Sticks’ made of sandalwood to venerate their ancestors, which they value as being the finest incense.
Because the oil is in the heartwood including the roots, then the complete tree is harvested and in the past was not replanted as it takes more than thirty years for a sandalwood tree to reach maturity under natural conditions. Which has resulted in what appears to be almost the complete deforestation of the island of Sumba. All sandalwood trees in India are government-owned and their harvest is controlled, however many trees are illegally cut down. Most of the world’s sandalwood now comes from North West Australia where it is commercially grown and harvested.
Sumba Landscape
On this early Dutch map of the eastern archipelago, the island of Sumba is named as Poelo Tjsindana or Sandal Bosch Eyland. There are no records that the Portuguese or the Dutch ever harvested sandalwood trees on Sumba and the island has been almost totally deforested, with some sandalwood trees only recently being replanted.
So where did these sandalwood trees from Sandalwood Island go? The burning of incense to honour the Gods and honour the ancestors go back centuries as is depicted in this image from the Borobodur Temple, a Buddhist monument that was built in the 8th century. It can only be assumed that all the sandalwood from Sandalwood Island was collected and sent to Java and then possibly to India and China, centuries before the Portuguese or the Dutch even arrived in the Indonesian archipelago.
An Image of burning incense carved into the walls of the Borobodur Monument
When I was researching the book Spice Islands I came across an arresting image used in a pamphlet to advertise an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. After more research I found it was from a painting of Sultan Sayfoedin of Tidore who ruled from 1657 to 1687.
A painting which was probably by a Dutch artist and so I expected it would be in the Rijksmuseum. However I could not find it there and eventually I found it was in the Czartoryski Museum in Kracow. I have no idea who was the artist or how the painting got to Kracow but it is lucky that it survived all the revolutions and invasions of Poland.
After the November 1830 uprising and the confiscation of the Czartoryski properties the collection was moved to a safe place in Paris and then moved back to Kracow in 1876. In 1914 and the First World War the collection was moved to Dresden in Germany before moving back to the family museum in 1920. In 1939 after the German invasion of Poland the collection was looted and many objects were taken to Germany. In 1945 the Polish representative at the Allies Commission for the Retrieval of Works of Art claimed the stolen artifacts on behalf of the Czartoryski Museum. However, 843 artifacts were missing from the collection whose whereabouts remain unknown to this day.
I absolutely had to have a high resolution image of the painting for the title page of Spice Islands. But the rights were held by the Bridgeman Art Library and it was going to cost a fortune to have the image included in the book. However I had to have it and there was no other choice but to pay up.
I also included in Spice Islands this photo of the late sister of the Sultan Ternate with her son. taken at the Sultan’s Palace in Ternate.
Although separated by 350 years I can see an uncanny similarity between these two men.
Willem was the son of King Willem II and Anna Paylovna of Russia and on the death of his father in 1849, he succeeded as king of the Netherlands where ruled until his death in 1890.
William III was a man of immense stature with a boisterous voice, standing at 6’5″ (196 cm) he was an exceptionally large and strong man. Known to be a philanderer he had several dozen illegitimate children from various mistresses. He could be gentle and kind, then suddenly he could become intimidating and even violent. He was inclined to terrorize and humiliate his courtiers and servants. His ministers were afraid of him and most people around him agreed that he was, to some degree, insane.
He married his first cousin, Sophie, daughter of King William I of Württemberg and Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia on 18 June 1839. This marriage was unhappy and was characterized by struggles about their children. Sophie was a liberal intellectual, hating everything leaning toward dictatorship, such as the army. Whereas William was simpler, more conservative, and loved the military. His extramarital enthusiasms, however, led the New York Times to call him “the greatest debaucher of the age”. Another cause of marital tension (and later political tension) was his capriciousness as he could rage against someone one day and be extremely polite the next.
Queen Sophie
After years of turmoil, Sophie and Willem mutually wished to have a divorce, but a divorce was seen as an impossible scandal because of their position. By the mediation of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, a formal separation without divorce was finalized in 1855, and it was decided that the couple was to remain formally married in public, but allowed to live separate lives in practice. Willem was to be given full right to decide about the upbringing of their eldest son, who would become King, while Sophie was given full custody of their youngest. Sophie was to fulfill her representational duties as Queen in public, but allowed to live her private life as she wished.
Sophie was an unusual queen with her left leaning political opinions and scientific interests, and her non-dogmatic views on religion, her support for progressive development and her disdain for etiquette gave her the soubriquet “la reine rouge” (‘The Red Queen’). Sophie died at Huis ten Bosch Palace in the Hague in 1877 and she was buried in her wedding dress, because, in her own view, her life had ended on the day she married.
During his reign, the king became more and more unpopular with his bourgeois-liberal subjects, his whims provoking their resistance and mockery, but he remained quite popular with the common people.
Willem III had two sons by his marriage with Sophia, Willem (1841–1879), and Alexander (1843–1884). Both of them died unmarried and the death of Prince Alexander left the house of Orange without a direct male heir. After the death of Queen Sophia in 1877 the prospect of a disputed succession was averted by the marriage of the king in 1879 with the twenty year old princess Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont, who managed to produce an heir.
King Willem, Queen Emma and Princess Wilhelmina
From this union a daughter, Wilhelmina, was born in 1880. In 1888 and 1889, the ailing king became increasingly demented and died in 1890. On her father’s death Wilhelmina succeeded him as Queen of the Netherlands and ruled for 57 years until her abdication in 1948.
Abandoned and forgotten, a magnificent bronze bust of King Willem III lies in a side garden and usually behind a locked door, in the rear of the former Dutch Colonial headquarters on the island of Pulau Banda in Eastern Indonesia. Perhaps he should be rescued and brought back to the Netherlands,
King Willem III (Ian Burnet)The former Dutch Colonial Headquarters on Pulau Banda (Ian Burnet)
In Conrad’s time the Post Office, the Harbour office, the offices of the ships chandlers and various shipping agents were situated along the harbourside with a view of the ships lined up in the Straits of Singapore. A rambling two-story building with a colonnaded façade and shuttered windows stood on the point near the Cavanagh Bridge where Flint Street meets Battery Road. It contained the premises of McAlister and Company who were Ships Chandlers, Sailmakers, Ship Brokers and General Merchants. A vast cavern-like space which contained every sundry item that a ship needed to put to sea. In the same building were Emmerson’s Tiffin, Billiard and Reading Rooms which drew sailors, merchants and those from the Harbour Office to its daily lunch menu which was advertised as Tiffin a La Carte and is best described as Mulligatawny soup and a Malay chicken curry and rice. These men liked the noisy camaraderie of Emmerson’s rooms which were filled with tales of ships, sailors, piracy, disasters at sea and the latest rumours circulating the port.
Plaque in honor of Joseph Conrad Koreniowski on the harbourside near the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore.
The location of the current Fullerton Hotel was once the site of the former Post Office and Harbour Office in Conrad’s time. A memorial to Joseph Conrad stands on the seafront of the hotel and dedicated to him as a ‘British Master Mariner and great English writer who made Singapore and the whole of South East Asia better known to the world’.
Keppel Harbour in Singapore
Between 1870 and 1890 the value of exports and imports passing through Singapore nearly tripled and Singapore boomed as a regional entrepot where half of everything that arrived in the city was off-loaded onto different vessels for delivery to ports on the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and the Dutch East Indies. The painting shows this is the beginning of age of steamships as in the background are the masts of the three masted barques as sailed by Joseph Conrad and the smoke from the steamships in the harbour. According to Conrad ‘the sea was now a used-up drudge, wrinkled and defaced by the churned-up wakes of brutal propellers, robbed of the enslaving charm of its vastness, stripped of its beauty, of its mystery and its promise’.
Keppel Harbour showing the pilgrim ship Jeddah
On the left is what I believe to be the 993-ton steamship Jeddah with its Muslim passengers streaming aboard. The Jeddah left Singapore in July 1880 for Penang to pick up additional pilgrims bound for the Holy Land. The ship was owned by Syed Mohsin bin Salleh Al Joffree who was listed in the Singapore Register as a merchant and ship owner of 36 Raffles Place and his son Seyyid Omar was on board. There were seven European officers including Captain Clark and the first mate Austin Williams, who became the Lord Jim of Conrad’s famous story.
Unloading archipelago goods from the Riau Archipelago.
The painting also shows Malay praus at the dock with archipelago traders and Chinese coolies unloading their goods such as fruit, vegetables and native rubber (gutta- percha) from the Riau Archipelago which lies just south of Singapore as can be seen on this painting of Singapore. The beginning of Conrad’s book ‘The End of the Tether’ is set in Singapore where his Captain Whalley is ending his days and Conrad best describes the shipping in the Singapore Strait with these lines:
‘Some of these avenues ended at the sea. It was a terraced shore; and beyond, upon the level expanse, profound and glistening like the gaze of a dark-blue eye, an oblique band of stippled purple lengthened itself indefinitely through the gap between a couple of verdant twin islets. The masts and spars of a few ships far away, hull down in the outer roads, sprang straight from the water in a fine maze of rosy lines penciled on the clear shadow of the eastern board. Captain Whalley gave them a long glance. The ship, once his own, was anchored out there. It was staggering to think that it was open to him no longer to take a boat at the jetty and get himself pulled off to her when the evening came. To no ship. Perhaps never more’.
View of Singapore and the Singapore Strait with the Riau Islands in the distance.
Many people will not know where is Timor Leste – and where is Oecussi?
Oecussi is an enclave of Timor Leste (East Timor) located within the territory of West Timor, which is part of Indonesia as shown on this map. And the only access without crossing Indonesian territory is by ferry or small plane from Dili.
There is a statue on the beach near the mouth of the Tono River which commemorates the first arrival of Portuguese explorers at this site in 1515. After which a settlement was established to trade machetes and iron goods, including firearms, for the valuable sandalwood found growing in the interior.
The Portuguese disembarked here in 1515The Portuguese Priests in Oecusse from 1515 – 1704
A statue in the town of Pante Macassar celebrates the Portuguese arrival in Timor. The first permanent Catholic presence in Timor occurred in 1641 when the Dominican priest Father Jacinto sailed from Larantuka and converted the Queen of Mena and the nearby Kings of Ambeno and Amanuban to Christianity.
The Portuguese Church in Pante Macassar is solidly built, needs some maintenance on the outside, but is clean and tidy inside.
The Sunday service was conducted by a young Dominican priest who the next day officiated at the blessing of some sandalwood plants that were part of a re-forestation program.
You’re probably familiar with the sight of a lillipilly bush. This hardy Australian staple – a glossy evergreen bearing powder-puff flowers and clusters of bright berries – features in many a garden hedge.
The powder-puff flowers of lillipilly’s light up our lives when they flower
But you may not know this humble native has spread across the globe in waves of emigration, adaptation and evolution. Almost 1,200 species of lillipilly are now found in rainforests across the tropics and subtropics of Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Research has helped reconstruct the evolutionary history of lillipilly’s in unprecedented detail and we can show how lillipilly’s evolved in Australia and now form the largest genus of trees in the world.
Twenty-one million years ago – When the Australian continent is about to collide with Asia.
Lillipilly’s began their international adventures about 17 million years ago. At that time, the Australian continent (which together with New Guinea is known as the Sahul Shelf) was colliding with Southeast Asia (known as the Sunda Shelf) following its breakup with Antarctica. This breakup was the final dramatic act of the fragmentation of Gondwana. The collision provided opportunity for biotic exchange between the northern and southern hemispheres. Many plants and animals moved south to the Sahul Shelf and prospered in the new lands. Lillipilly’s are one of the few lineages that moved in the other direction. Along with our songbirds, lillipilly’s stand as a rare example of an Australian group that set out from these shores and achieved major evolutionary success abroad.
Plump clove buds from the annual clove harvest. Photo Ian Burnet
Many species in the genus are used as food and medicine by indigenous people, and cloves have potent antibacterial and analgesic properties which made them very valuable in a world without modern medicine. A favourite spice of home bakers, cloves are the dried flower buds of an Indonesian lillipilly – the aptly named Syzygium aromaticum.
Credit to an article by Darren Crayn, Professor and Director of the Tropical Herbarium at James Cook University and published in The Conversation.
To achieve the maximum amount of clove oil the buds are picked before they break into flower. Photo Ian Burnet
Commercial quality cloves were originally only found in seven ‘Spice Islands’ off the west coast of the island of Halmahera in Eastern Indonesia. In the 17th and 18th centuries the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and English all built forts and fought wars over control of the valuable spice trade.
Ternate is the northernmost of the seven volcanic Clove Islands off the west coast of Halmahera. This image shows the Dutch fort on the island as well as the clove trees it was built to protect. As the cloves are laid out to dry in the sun their colour changes from green to red to black. Photo Ian Burnet
The clove tree has a characteristic triangular shape and can be recognised from a distance. As seen here covering a hillside of the island of Obilatu, south of Halmahera, in Eastern Indonesia.
The two spicy Ian’s. Ian (Herbie) Hemphill and Ian (Spice Islands) Burnet.Ian (Herbie) Hemphill of ‘Herbies Spices’ admiring a mountain of cloves at a warehouse in Ternate. Photo Ian Burnet
Like the Portuguese Church in Batavia this is actually a Dutch Church built in the grounds of a former Portuguese Church. This becomes evident when you look at all the Portuguese names on the gravestones in the adjacent cemetery, such as DaSilva, DaCosta, Minggo, Couterius, DaLopez, Fernandez etc etc.
The Portugese Church in Sikka. Photo Ian Burnet
The interior of the Church is magnificent. I am amazed at its size and the construction of the interior beams that form its huge vaulted ceiling. Solid teak columns rise from the tiled floor and support two more levels of columns, beams and crossbeams before slanting inwards to form the vaulted ceiling.
I expect that pre-cut Javanese teakwood was imported in kit-form for its construction in the 1890’s, as the columns and beams formed a self-supporting structure that was built before the brick-and-mortar walls of the church were added.
The columns and beams that form the interior of the Church. Photo Ian BurnetThe construction of the vaulted ceiling. Photo Ian Burnet
At the far end of the church the nave is simple in its design and three stained glass windows transmit a soft light into the interior. Surprising to me is that the stained glass is in a geometric floral design without any religious symbolism. I gaze in awe at this magnificent construction and think of the master craftsmen who put it together, over 100 years ago, in this small village on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia.
Inside the church is a memorial stone dedicated to the memory of Father J.F. LeCocq D’Armandville. He was born in Delft in 1845 and trained to be a Jesuit priest before leaving for the Dutch East Indies in 1879. After serving in Semarang and Maumere he arrived in the village of Sikka in 1885 to revive the Catholic faith there. His determination led to the building of the new church. The first mass was conducted in 1887 within the teak frame of the new church which already had an iron roof but no walls. For the walls LeCocq showed his parishioners how to bake bricks with a local clay and it was not until 1889 that the church, with its white plastered walls and an interior adorned with a band of traditional ikat design, was officially completed.
Ian Burnet combines his love of adventure and travel with his knowledge of history to take us on a personal journey through geographic space and historical time, which will delight all armchair travellers.
Travelling by bus, plane, train, ferry, boat, car and motorcycle from Java to Timor, he hops from island to island across the Indonesian archipelago, following the smoking volcanoes that form its spine.
The Earth is a stage, and though it may be an advantage, even to the right comprehension of the play, to know its exact configuration, it is always the drama of human endeavour that will be the thing, with a ruling passion expressed by outward action, marching perhaps blindly to success or failure, which themselves are often undistinguishable from each other at first.
Of all the sciences, geography finds its origin in action, and, what is more, in adventurous action of the kind that appeals to sedentary people, who like to dream of arduous adventure in the manner of prisoners dreaming behind their bars of all the hardships and hazards of liberty, dear to the heart of man.
Joseph Conrad, National Geographic, March 1924
No region on his voyages across the world inspired Joseph Conrad more than the lush, green archipelago’s of South East Asia, the ancient city of Bangkok; the busy port of Singapore, awhisper with sea intrigue; the resource- rich forests of Borneo; the steamy, storm-crossed seas of South China, Celebes and Java; and the pirate-pillaged straits of Macassar and Malacca; these are the settings for the stories and novels of Conrad’s early work.
Keppel Harbour, Singapore, 1850’s
As shown in this painting of a Singapore harbour, Conrad’s time in the East coincided with the last days of sail, the rise of steam and the high water mark of colonial trade. His stories of Dutch traders, English adventurer’s, Brunei rovers and Malay, Bugis and Arab rulers unfold against a backdrop of exotic island landscapes, reef-sharpened shallows, and deadly straits. Conrad’s characters develop within a climate heavy with the threat of monsoon, typhoon or tsunami.
The Journeys that inspired the South Seas stories, National Geographic Magazine, 1924. Please click and enlarge to see the details of his voyages and his books.
Joseph Conrad serves as first officer on the trading vessel Vidar from August 22, 1887 to January 4, 1888. His voyages along the treacherous Karimata and Macassar Strait to Tanjung Redeb in East Borneo inspired his books – Almayers Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Lord Jim, Victory and The Rescue.
Plan of the trading ship Vidar
The Vidar was a Singapore ship captained by James Craig, with Joseph Conrad as the Chief Officer, two British engineers and a crew of Malays, Chinese and Indians from Singapore. Most of their cargo of English and Dutch goods would be unloaded in Macassar before they sailed on to collect rubber, rattan and other archipelago goods in the remote trading post of Tanjung Redeb on the northeast coast of Borneo, which became Sambir or Patusan in his books.
The Vidar in Macassar, 1883, J.C.Rappard
Joseph Conrad’s Eastern Voyages – Tales of Singapore and an East Borneo River
Mohammad Hatta ditangkap oleh Pemerintah Colonial pada 25 Februari 1934, dan dipenjarakan di Penjara Glodok. Sebelum ia di berankatkan ke Boven Digul, Hatta diizinkan keluar selama tiga hari untuk mengepak buku-bukanya dalan enam belas peti. Pada salah satu hari itu foto ini dibuat di Kebon Jeruk nomor 37.
After his return from the Netherlands in 1932. Mohammad Hatta was arrested by the Colonial Government on 25 February 1934 and jailed in Glodok prison until his deportation to Boven Digul in January 1935. Before his departure he was allowed to pack up his books in sixteen chests. This picture was taken on one of those days at Kebon Jeruk number 37.
Mohammad Hatta at home with his mother and sisters
Hatta and Sjahrir were moved from Boven Digul arriving on the colonial vessel Fomalhaut on February 11 1936, and were greeted by a large crowd while landing in Banda Neira.
Hatta and Sjahrir temporarily stayed in the house of a fellow exile Tjipto Mangunkusumo for a week until they were able to move to their own residence which happened to be next to the jail. A few months later Sjahrir decided to move to another residence.
Dr. Tjipto Mangunkusumo and his wifeRumah Pengasinan Sutan SjahrirSutan Sjahrir on Banda with members of the Alwi family
In total their were sixteen political detainees living in Banda from 1880 until 1942 as listed in this memorial erected by Des Alwi.
To occupy their time Hatta and Sjahrir opened an afternoon school for the children of Banda Neira. Hatta gave lessons to the older children and Sjahrir to the younger ones. The house has been restored as a national memorial and the desks and the blackboard from the school are in place in the rear of the Hatta house.
Exile Residence of Mohammad HattaThe school in the rear of the house
After Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese in December 1941, the Dutch Governor General in Batavia ordered that Hatta and Sjahrir be brought back to Java. In the early morning of January 31, 1942 a Catalina seaplane of the American Navy landed in the harbour and according to Sjahrir:
We had to leave before daylight, because otherwise it would not be possible. The Japanese were in Ambon and their planes were expected to follow the Catalina at any moment. All of Banda was on the dock – half awake, half dressed, unwashed, and frightened – to see us off.
On July 7, 1942 Soekarno returned to Batavia from his ten years of exile in Sumatra. Soon after his return, he, Hatta and Sjahrir met to plan their response to the Japanese occupation and their plans for Indonesian independence. It was agreed that for the time being Soekarno and Hatta would cooperate with the Japanese, while Sjahrir and his friends , who were anti-fascist democrats would be active in the underground with the goal of resurrecting the nationalist movement.
After the bombing of Hiroshima and the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945 then on August 17, 1945 Soekarno and Hatta proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Indonesia.
The Proclamation of IndependenceAdmiral Maeda, Soekarno and Hatta at the Proclamation of Independence, August 17, 1945
I )used to spend a lot of time doing research in the National Library of Singapore. From the upper levels I would look down on the church across the road without knowing of its significance. However, one day I wandering across to the church and discovered that this was the site for one of the earliest churches in Singapore.
Memorial for the founder of the Church the Reverend Francisco da Silva Pinto e Maia
The history of Saint Joseph’s Church and that of its predecessor, the Church of São José, both built on the same site, is inextricably linked with the Portuguese Mission. Father Francisco da Silva Pinto e Maia of Porto arrived from Goa in 1826 and founded the Mission in Singapore. When he died in 1850, he left his money and some land for the building of a small church. The church, which was called São José, was built by the priest who succeeded him from 1851 to 1853, to mainly serve the Portuguese and Eurasian Catholics in Singapore.
Coat of Arms of the Diocese of Macao
The present Saint Joseph’s Church was completed in 1912 and blessed by the then Bishop of Macau, João Paulino de Azevedo e Castro, who was the impetus behind this project.
Saint Joseph’s church on Victoria Street, Singapore.
The plan of the church was laid in the form of a Latin cross. The interior is a single large space roofed by a wooden barrel-vault instead of a gothic-style ceiling. Neither the nave nor the transepts have aisles. It is currently painted in white, with blue details, like the exterior. The west front has three towers: a central octagonal tower capped by a dome flanked by two smaller towers.
The Altar and the domed ceiling
A significant segment of the Eurasian community in Singapore in the early days were baptised and married here. It was known as the “Eurasian Church”, with successive generations of families such as the de Costas, the d’Cottas, the de Souzas, the de Mellos, the Deskers, the Fernandezes, the Gomeses, the Josephs, the Pereiras, the Pintos, the Tessensohns and many more, among its parishioners.
Looking towards the entrance to the Church.
What I appreciated about the church was the decorative Portuguese terracotta tiles that formed its floor. The church has been closed for five years while it was fully renovated and recently reopened in June 2022. This panoramic image shows the newly restored church and the decorative floor tiles.
To maintain the Portuguese character of the church, the Bishop of Macau continued to post priests to the church until 31 December 1999, when the rector of the church, Father Benito de Sousa, ended his term and the Bishop of Macau had decided to stop sending missionaries to the church. So, the last link between Saint Joseph’s Church and the Portuguese Mission was severed.
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