"Right along Praia Grande, with its typical Portuguese contours, there are some ostentatious mansion houses mingling alongside shabby, lowly little houses. Across the road, the muddy waters of the two rivers mix together, separating the peninsula from the verdant islands in the distance, a scene graced with junks coming alongside the harbour like huge birds with yellow wings. And then I arrived at the green railings of that dark, secluded house where the poet lived. Chinese were gathered around the fountain talking in nasal voices as they collected water in various receptacles. A gilded sign stated, in Chinese characters, that this was where the lawyer Camilo Pessanha worked.
There was no need to knock on the door, you just lifted the latch on the door leading into a large courtyard which could have been in any house in the Minho. There was a flight of steps up to the first floor and a lean-to on top. Inside, the guardians of the house barked nineteen to the dozen and three or four puppies rushed around my legs on the balcony. Emerging in the wake of the dogs was a smiling Chinese maiden, her teeth gleaming ivory and gold."
"The poet was always at home at that hour, lying in his bed. He spent whole afternoons like that, only going out very occasionally. Once the door opened, you went through the two entrance halls and then turned sharp right to reach his room. Then you pulled back the door curtains and through the yellowed grill saw the dreamer's black beard and tiny bright eyes.
What a surprise for anyody who suddenly found himself there having come from afar and was not familiar with Chinese hygiene and disorder. Had it not been for his large European bed made of shining metal and a few books shoved into cupboards and piled on chairs, it could have been the home of any local Chinese. To my classical spirit, that Romantic disorder was an affliction. Strewn on the floor, on cupboards, overflowing on an Empire sideboard, packed into comers and preventing free movement, there was an infinite number of ornaments, vases, porcelains dishes and Chinese bronzes varying in colour, size and beauty. Beside the larger bed stood a smaller one, unoccupied, dishevelled. Behind the little bed there was a hat stand piled up with scrolls of Chinese paintings. Hanging on the walls there were many others, mouldering away in contact with the damp plaster-work, so typical of China with its atmosphere heavy with humidity for so many days of the year. Over the Empire sideboard hung a beautiful silk painting of a basket filled with burgeoning flowers in a wealth of colours."
"Both rooms had walls covered with plates, trays and paintings. Various pieces of furniture, cupboards and display cabinets held a plethora of shining porcelain in blue, red, gold, Fuquien white, the blue and white typical of Qing-lung and Peking yellow. In one corner stood statues of all sizes. On the floor stood heroes and gods of the Buddhist faith or local superstitions. Over the lintels were sets of plates covered in dust and spiders webs. Three beautiful Persian carpets were spread on the floor with remnants of indiscretions from the poorly-trained Pekinese dogs. I discovered, amongst the heaps of predominantly worthless items, a valuable Quang-hi plate which he told me he had lost many years previously.
His great love for Art was in fact disastrous for Art itself. It would not be long before those paintings would be reduced to scraps and the beautiful carpets turned into mouldy rags. Many pieces of porcelain had been broken by the dogs."
Sebastião da Costa
Seara Nova, nº 85, 29th April 1926
"Camilo Pessanha moved from Calçada do Tronco Velho to nº 75, Rua da Praia Grande which was later demolished and is now a private garden. This house was bigger and it was easier for him to lay out his museum where everything was thrown together like a junk shop. The hall led into two rooms: to the right of the second room there was a door into his bedroom. There was nothing Chinese in this room: an iron bed, an unprepossessing bedside table, two antique English chests and a teak wardrobe. On his bed, which stood by the window, there were books, newspapers, various bits of paper, court cases and the tray with the light and pipes for smoking opium."
José de Carvalho e Rego
Notícias de Macau, 11th February 1968
"One of the last occasions when I saw Camilo Pessanha was in Macau towards the end of the summer of 1912. I had returned from Timor via Manila and Hong Kong and was on my way to Lisbon and West Africa. He was in his seventeenth or eighteenth century mansion which stood near the Hotel da Boa Vista where I was staying with my wife, with its bright balconies giving onto the water where sepia lorchas slipped past. Pessanha's mansion had spacious rooms and wide corridors where he had his phantasmagorical Chinese museum sprawled out..."
Alberto Osorio de Castro
Atlântico, 1942
"Macau, June 1953
I came here today to see what was left of him. Other than a handful of poems, which were enough to make him a major figure in Portuguese poetry, what else did I know about the man of the "strokes of the cello"?
That he lived here for a large part of his life, that he had a beard, that he smoked opium and died here.
I came here to try to find out more, however slowly. I had even brought my camera to take a picture of the house where the poet had lived. It has been demolished, razed to the ground: there was no trace of it!"
Guilherme de Castilho
O Comércio do Porto,
13th April 1954
"I went to his house: a wide door, a courtyard, two staircases, another door with a grille: an infernal chattering in Chinese mixed up with the barking of dogs."
A. de Albuquerque
Diário de Lisboa
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