After studying at the Naval College, he was commissioned a lieutenant in 1875 and served aboard warships based in Portuguese Mozambique.

While there he first began writing his Traços do Extremo Oriente, married an Anglo-Chinese woman named Atchan (from whom he separated in 1893), and visited Siam, Portuguese Timor, and Japan (the last nearly every year).

Increasingly fascinated by Japan, he converted to Buddhism and married a former geisha named Fukumoto Yone in a Shinto ceremony.

Grief-stricken after her death in 1912, he resigned his position as consul, severed all relations with the Portuguese Navy and foreign ministry, and moved to Yone's home city of Tokushima, where he lived with her niece Koharu and visited her grave every day.

[3] Paulo Rocha's film A Ilha dos Amores (1982) is about the life and loves of Moraes in Macau and Japan.