"The outermost of Portugal's possessions"

Na escala de cerca de 4 dias em Hong Kong que os cruzeiros faziam no início do século 20 os turistas aproveitavam para visitar não só a colónia britânica como também Cantão e Macau. Neste post recupero um catálogo da agência de viagens Thomas Cook há precisamente 100 anos...

"(...) From Manila Bay to the magnificent harbour of Hongkong is a voyage of about two days. Here begins that age-old empire of China from which, a month later, the eastbound traveler finally emerges fifteen hundred miles farther north, after experiences that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world. (...)

The “Land of Sweet Sadness” 

Another and shorter steamboat excursion lands the traveler in the outermost of Portugal's possessions - Macao. The gem of the Orient earth, but also a rival of Monte Carlo as a gambling stronghold and the most convenient place in the world to view half a million dollars' worth of opium being cooked in huge pots like chocolate. But there is a charm about beautiful Macao that no other city of the Far East possesses, and the heritage of its past transcends its motley collection of vices. Here, in a garden that bears his name, the exiled Portuguese poet, Camoens, wrote his immortal "Lusiads”; here, in a neglected grave, sleeps Robert Morrison, who translated the Bible into Chinese and unconsciously set in motion influences that had much to do with making china a republic; and here it was also that Wells Williams found a haven in wich to setp up his Chinese printing-press."

Excerto de "Over the seven seas, around the world and Australasian tours, 1923-'24", guia das excursões turísticas da agência de viagens Thomas Cook.