58 RAMBLES OF A NATUEALIST. [Ch. IV. 



and a square-rigged Bremen vessel, as well as numerous 

 fishing-boats lay at anchor. Near the mouth of this river 

 also are the ruins of an old Dutch fort on the beach, 

 celebrated in the annals of the island as Fort Zeelandia, 

 and more particularly in connexion with the tragical episode 

 which ended the Dutch occupation in 1661. Formosa, 

 under its enterprisiag colonists, had reached a political and 

 social condition far superior to that which it now enjoys, 

 and an attachment had sprung up between the natives and 

 their foreign rulers ; but this very prosperity excited the 

 cupidity of Kok-siaga, a renowned piratical chief, who, in 

 May, 1661, appeared with a fleet and force of 25,000 men. 

 The Dutch concentrated themselves in Fort Zeelandia, while 

 hundreds of the settlers fell victims to the cruel invader, 

 whose descent was sudden and imexpected. Finding that 

 the besieged were determined to hold out to the last ex- 

 tremity, the pirate became exasperated and would listen to 

 no terms ; meanwhile massacring with cruel tortures hun- 

 dreds of Dutch prisoners who had fallen into his hands, 

 after which the corpses were stripped and buried in heaps — 

 the women beiag distributed among the officers and men of 

 his force. The little garrison at length was compelled to 

 capitulate, and the Dutch were for ever expelled from the 

 island ; whUe the natives, who were in a fair way of being 

 civilised and Christianised, have, meanwhile, relapsed into 

 their primitive barbarism. The devotion of the Eev. Mr. 

 Hambroek, a minister of the Dutch reformed church, who 

 was sent by Kok-singa to make terms with the besieged, is 

 still on record — a devotion worthy of a Regulus, and bearing 

 a close analogy to that old tale of Carthage. 



North of Zeelandia is Kok-si-kon, formerly a port, but 

 now closed up ; and beyond this a long, low, sandy beach. 



