Harry Hervey é o autor do livro "Where Strange Gods Call: Pages Out of the East" editado pela primeira vez em Nova Iorque em 1924.
A obra tem por base a viagem do autor que passou entre outros locais pelo Hawai, Tailândia, Malásia, China e Macau. Sobre o território escreve: "Numa primeira impressão Macau surge como um borrão pálido de marfim na neblina azul; depois, gradualmente, surge esculpida na difusa neblina da luz solar reflectida, afirmando-se numa substancialidade verde e prata, um semicírculo de casas e jardins pigmeus com vista para uma baía em formato de meia lua".
Hervey nasceu no Texas (EUA) em 1900 e morreu em 1951. Viveu em Savannah e Tenessee (EUA) e começou a escrever logo aos 6 anos de idade. Muitas das suas obras foram adaptadas ao cinema sendo "Shangai Express" a mais conhecida
As ilustrações do livro são da autoria de Christopher Murphy Jr. (1902-1973) que Hervey conheceu quando vivia em Savannah.
Muito provavelmente Murphy não viajou pela Ásia pelo que não viu o que ilustrou no texto de Hervey.
Excerto sobre Macau:
Three days before I was to leave Hong-Kong, Chang invited me to go to Macao, an old Portuguese-Chinese city on the island of Heung Shan, some forty miles across the estuary of the Canton River. The name 'Macao' or, to give the town its full title, 'Cidade do Santo Nom de Deus de Macao/ has always held a wicked allure for me.
Baize-topped tables; clinking cash... the opulent fume of poppy-smoke. It is there that the most notorious gambling-houses in the Orient slumber by day and purr by night. And from the great brass caldrons of its opium factories pours a ceaseless stream of black treacle that flows around the world.
From Hong-Kong to Macao is a three or four-hour run; and our ship, a steamer that made regular trips, shook off the mists of Victoria, like a moth discarding a damp cocoon, and luxuriated in the golden fulgor of a sun-warmed sea. Forward, iron grilles protected the companionways leading to the engines. These, Chang explained, were a precaution against pirates. Only a week or two before, he went on to say, a boat coining in from the Portuguese colony had been seized, the passengers locked in the cabins., and the ship looted and set adrift.
From Hong-Kong to Macao is a three or four-hour run; and our ship, a steamer that made regular trips, shook off the mists of Victoria, like a moth discarding a damp cocoon, and luxuriated in the golden fulgor of a sun-warmed sea. Forward, iron grilles protected the companionways leading to the engines. These, Chang explained, were a precaution against pirates. Only a week or two before, he went on to say, a boat coining in from the Portuguese colony had been seized, the passengers locked in the cabins., and the ship looted and set adrift.
It sounded rather splendid; indeed, I could fancy the exquisite thrill put into motion by the sudden appearance of a pirate junk on that agate-smooth sea. On the lower deck were numberless coolies, the majority naked to the waist, their great salient muscles given an oily glisten by the sunlight; all bound for the gambling colony, inflamed by dreams of fan-tan and opium and little girls with blood-carmine lips.
Bare-breasted islands lay drowsing in the pure silence: flecks of dust on a great, flawless blue pearl. There was, on our deck, a Chinaman clothed after the manner of a Cantonese gentleman. He wore a long black robe, slashed at the sides and buttoned, and a black silk skullcap. Under the outer garment was a full blue skirt. His Oriental attire gave him a dignity that even Chang, with all his regal manners, could not equal; and I remarked to my friend that I rather fancied the native dress of his country. He seemed surprised. "Yes? Had I known that, I would not have changed to European clothing. You see," he explained, "it is how do the French say it? dtfendu? it is dSfendu for a white man to associate with a Chinese gentleman in Hong Kong; at least, according to the British. So, for your sake, I cast aside my national costume temporarily," I felt that I knew him well enough to discuss a delicate matter, and so I dropped a prob- ing question in regard to the relationship be- tween white and yellow in Hong-Kong. "Analyzed, it is simply a matter of the difference in the color of the skin," he said candidly. "Coolie or high official, the discrimination, fundamentally, is slight. Socially, in diplomatic circles, the high official is accepted, but one Englishman never fails to apologize to the other for the fact. Race-consciousness is very highly developed in the British but no more than in the Chinese. We have not forgotten our heritage."
Macao first appeared as an ivory-pale blur in the blue haze; then, gradually, it seemed carved out of the misty diffusion of reflected sunlight, asserting itself in green and silver substantiality a semicircle of pygmy houses and gardens overlooking a half -moon bay. On a full-bosomed promontory at one end of the town stood a light- house, an immaculate sentinel poised above the mellow-hued stucco buildings. Immediately upon landing we took rickshaws along the Praia Grande and through the European and Chinese quarters. In the former were many splendid dwellings and gardens thick with subtropical plants; many fountains, too, gurgling and fuming in the voluptuous sunshine.
Macao first appeared as an ivory-pale blur in the blue haze; then, gradually, it seemed carved out of the misty diffusion of reflected sunlight, asserting itself in green and silver substantiality a semicircle of pygmy houses and gardens overlooking a half -moon bay. On a full-bosomed promontory at one end of the town stood a light- house, an immaculate sentinel poised above the mellow-hued stucco buildings. Immediately upon landing we took rickshaws along the Praia Grande and through the European and Chinese quarters. In the former were many splendid dwellings and gardens thick with subtropical plants; many fountains, too, gurgling and fuming in the voluptuous sunshine.
A rather sensuous place, this Macao. Particularly the Chinese quarter. Through narrow, tortuous streets and between low houses; past gilded, vermilioned theaters and gambling-palaces moved sleepy-eyed beings, some of whom were pure Chinese or Portuguese but most of whom were Nhons; that is to say, a mixture of both. These Nhons, said Chang, speak a Portuguese patois and call themselves subjects of Portugal; in fact, many full-blooded Chinese do the same for business reasons. As we rode through the town that afternoon, I was surprised to see a familiar black-swathed figure moving somberly against a moss-grown wall a Christian nun. Her shadow wavered along the street behind her, frail as an illusion; and in the brutal white glare she looked so pallid, her skin so transparent that she seemed more like a symbol than a woman; a symbol that, in this yellow country, was an expression of tragic futility.
And just before dusk (the sky blooming a brilliant hue) I heard the pealing of chimes: transparent rose-petals of sound that scattered through the dying sunset and withered. There was something wistful and lonely in the music, a note mournfully intimate, and it took me back to my own country, to a little town in the mountains, where each autumn the forests rust and die, and cathedral chimes toll with heartbreaking melancholy. After nightfall, when a tiara of lights crowned the bay, Chang led the way to a very exclusive establishment where glazed-paper lanterns, heavily ideographed, proclaimed its purpose. The interior presented a scene soaked in thick aqueous blue smoke and enriched by the pungent odor of opium. Around a large table on the lower floor were crowds of middle-class Chinese, swim ming in the weird smoke-light like the inhabitants of some undersea cavern. Above, hovering over the encircling rail of a gallery, were a multitude of faces floating in the gloom like misshapen moons. There, said Chang, indicating the faces, were the high-class patrons. Accordingly, we joined them, escorted thither by an attendant.
A most elegant assembly crowded this upper floor, all men, and dressed in silks and brocades, some standing by the rail, lowering their bets to the table below by means of a basket, and others lounging upon divans, drinking tea or inhaling poppy-smoke. The air staggered with the combined richness of opium-fumes and pomaded humanity. Several Chinese gentlemen politely made room for us at the rail, and we gazed down at the beings who swarmed around the table. Piles of coins glimmered through the blue smoke, like sunken treasure. Moving lithely among the gamblers were satin-trousered courtezans who now and then lifted blanched faces to us. It looked very wicked and very pleasant, and it stung my blood with challenge. Many times during the following two hours I lowered the basket and drew it up empty; and many times Chang ordered whisky-sodas. Somewhere near midnight (I am sure it was midnight, for that is the propitious hour for bizarre happenings) Chang suggested that we repair to a private room where he had ordered supper served; the cook connected with this establishment prepared a faultless birds'nest pudding. In the room were two ebony divans, and Chang explained that frequently patrons remained overnight. (...)
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