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The Black Parrot

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About This Book

A mysterious man who arrives at a tropical colonial port carrying a striking cockatoo sets in motion a sequence of linked episodes across the Golden Chersonese. The narrative follows his movements through hotels, river landings, and jungle ruins, and traces encounters with locals, expatriates, and ambiguities of identity. Scenes shift between travelogue detail and dreamlike reverie, alternating moments of intrigue, personal confrontation, and evocative landscape description, creating an adventurous, atmospheric portrait of movement, memory, and the uncanny edges of empire.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Black Parrot

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Title: The Black Parrot

A tale of the Golden Chersonese

Author: Harry Hervey

Release date: December 8, 2025 [eBook #77428]

Language: English

Original publication: Toronto: F. D. Goodchild, 1923

Credits: Tim Lindell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK PARROT ***

THE BLACK PARROT

A Tale of the Golden Chersonese

BY HARRY HERVEY

AUTHOR OF "CARAVANS BY NIGHT," ETC.

"... You perceive, then, it is by the grace of Romance
that man has been exalted above the other animals...."

James Branch Cabell

F. D. GOODCHILD
TORONTO
1923

Copyright, 1923, by
The Century Co.

Printed in U. S. A.


TO CHARLES BEDELL HERVEY

Do you remember? I told you of the Khmers, the ancient Brahmans, who, with elephants and war-chariots, with legions of mailed swordsmen and archers, crashed through Manipur and Arakan, to the Lake of Tonle Sap, and there built an empire; built the long cloisters, the tremendous towers and stairways that now mourn beside the drowned forests of Angkor. I said that were you to go there some night when a full moon hangs over the jungle, you would hear the tread of perished armies (fierce, arrogant warriors, drunken with power and conquest) and see the Tevadas come down from the walls and dance about Naga, the Seven-Headed Cobra. And you said, "Put it into a story!" Do you remember?


CONTENTS

I. The Man from Guiana
II. Episode
III. The Blue Slendong
IV. S. S. Cambodia
V. Conquest
VI. The Dream Chandler
VII. Malay House
VIII. Salazar
IX. Barabbas Town

THE BLACK PARROT