A GLIMPSE AT THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 
OF THE HILL TRIBES OF NOATH FORMOSA, 
OSS ESOT er eee 
in a previous number of this Journal,* I touched lightly 
on the subject of the probable origin of the Hill Tribes of 
Formosa, adding at the same time a short vocabulary ofa 
dialect spoken by certain tribes and families occupying the 
savage forest-clad mountains to the South-Hast and South of 
the Chinese town of Banca #} aie the quondam emporium 
of foreign and native trade in the North of the island—a town 
said some twenty years ago to have been composed of thirty 
to forty thousand Chinese souls. Its position as a trading 
centre has been somewhat interfered with of late years by the 
rival town of Twatutia $2 ‘aK (situated only a mile or so 
to the North of Banca), whose growing importance is owing 
almost entirely to the establishment there of foreign mercan- 
tile houses, and to the rapid development of the tea trade, of 
which Twatutia is the principal mart. 
It is my present object to give a description of the abori- 
ginal tribes living in the hills in rear of Banca extending in 
various directions towards Sti-oh Bay on the Hast coast, and 
more especially of those tribes living nearest to the western 
borderland in the neighbourhood of Kot Chiu FR jf for- 
merly a Chinese border outpost, as well as of those residing 
in the mountains at the back of San Ko Yeng 7 #4 = and 
to the East also of To Ko Ham }4 Ft FL extending down to 
the “Sylvian and Dodd” ranges in the vicinity of the 
“ Petroleum Wells”’ discovered by myself in the spring of the 
year 1865. 
~ * Journal No. 9, pp. 69-84. 
