FORMOSA. [chap. 



It was with some such thoughts as these in my mind, that I 

 found myself gazing one morning in June, 1882, at the southern 

 point of the island of Formosa, regretting that we had but a few 

 days to devote to it. Day was just breaking, and our new 

 acquaintance seemed to wish to show herself under her most 

 attractive aspect. A calm sea, brushed into crisp ripples by the 

 early morning breeze, led the eye up to a wide stretch of bay lying 

 right ahead of us. Eange after range of thickly- wooded hills, which 

 in England would have done duty for mountains, rose Ijehind, and, 

 tinged with the flush of a tropic sunrise, seemed to belie the evil 

 reputation attaching to this coast. "You must know," says old 

 Candidius in his " Account of the Island Formosa," ^ " that these 

 natives are very wild and barbarous, and that a certain ship call'd 

 the Golden Lion being driven upon the coast by tempest, they 

 kill'd the captain and most of his crew." That they did not always 

 confine themselves merely to the murder of any one unlucky enough 

 to escape drowning is a well-known fact, and it is probable that, 

 even at the present day, cannibalism still exists among certain 

 native tribes. To the west the Chinese have held possession for 

 two or three centuries or more, but certain death awaited every one 

 shipwrecked on the eastern and southern shores of the island, for 

 the head-hunting propensities of some of the Formosans are as keen 

 as those of any Dyak. It was not, however, until the massacre of 

 the entire crew of the American ship Bover had occurred that 

 any steps were taken to mend matters. General Le Gendre, the 

 United States Consul at Amoy, at length succeeded, in October 

 1867, in concluding a treaty with Tok-e-tok, the paramount chief 

 of the tribes of the southern district, by which the latter engaged 

 to protect any stranger who might land, and to permit of the 

 erection of a fort as a refuge for shipwrecked mariners. A still 

 further point was gained in November, 1881, when, after considerable 

 difficulties, a lighthouse was erected at Nan-sha, or Wo-lan-pi, the 

 southern promontory of the island. This part of Formosa may 



^ Churchill's "Collection of Voyages and Travels," vol. i. p. 529. 



