67 
It was on the return from her house at one time that I 
experienced one of the decided sensations of my life. G— 
had gone over on an errand one morning and returned with 
.. the sad intelligence that Mrs. Mac—s was very ill with 
pneumonia. Having had considerable experience with 
that troublesome disease I hastened to go to her, arranging 
with G— to meet me at sun-set at an old shanty halfway 
between our houses, the road to which was through a dense 
spruce thicket—the rest of the way through more open 
forest. 
I left Sancho Panza (my dog) safely shut up at home fear 
ing he might prove troublesome in a sick room, as he would 
not leave me a moment could lie help it. f reached Mrs. 
Mae—s safely and had the pleasure of finding my prompt 
measures brought her great relief, so that by night she was 
out of danger, but it was sunset before I could leave her. 
I trudged hopefully on to the shanty to find utter silence 
and no G—. Surmising he had been and gone, I fired my 
revolver several times only to “set the wild echoes flying*” 
and so I reloaded and started on through those dense 
spruce woods. There’s no need to tell an old hunter how 
very dark it was there. If “Egyptian Darkness” was any 
more intense, those Egyptians have my warmest sympa¬ 
thies. 
I was nearely half way through the woods when startled 
by a sudden snuffiug a few feet to my left in the thicket, I 
stopped, a thoroughly scared woman. Mr. Bruin, (for it 
was a bear) snuffed several times and declining further 
acquaintance, to my great relief went crashing off through 
the under-growth, and I, well, I sat down awhile and rest¬ 
ed—not quite a dead faint hut nearly'so. After a time I 
got up and walked along; even had I not been too tired to 
hasten the path was so rough that I had to step carefully. 
At last I could hear home sound's, the lowing of the cat¬ 
tle, G—s voice, and Sancho’s bark, and then I “lifted up 
my voice” and called Sancho. Almost instantly came liis 
quick joyful answer, and I sat down and waited, knowing 
it would not be very long before my special guard and 
protector would be with me. 
Sancho Panza was a large black and white bulldog, 
weighing one hundred and two pounds, the truest of 
friends, and most zealous and vigilant of protectors for the 
special woman or chief placed in his care. While gentle 
as could be to his wards, he would not hesitate to take any 
man or beast by the throat if he feared danger for his 
charge. It was not many moments before the glorious old 
fellow was with me, and then, all fear gone, we pursued 
our way toward home, reaching there greatly to G—s sur¬ 
prise, who had been to the shanty and concluded I was not 
coming home, and was just wondering what had taken 
Sancho off in such haste, utterly heedless of his whistling 
and calling. 
-- 
IN FORMO SA. 
NUMBER ONE! 
W E, the General, Consul Dodd and I, were enjoying 
ourselves; a delicious cooling breeze was evaporat¬ 
ing the caloric with which a broiling Formosian sun had 
thoroughly impregnated the earth and air, and all that in 
them were; a good dinner in which the native venison, 
ducks and boar meat, pine apples, liecliees, and bananas, 
had been well relieved by luxuries of all the sorts that cans 
and jars and bottles could bring intact from far off England 
had been discussed, and at our ease in hyjammas and slip¬ 
pers, with Manila cheroots and Bass’ pale ad libitum , we 
were proving to our own satisfaction that even in this far off 
land comfort was attainable. We were in Dodd’s dining 
room, and his dining room the dining room in the town of 
Tamsui, which is a little village in the north-western part 
of the Island of Formosa—a village where half a dozen 
white men, including Dodd and his twenty-six dogs, main¬ 
tained with pluck and brains supremacy over a tribe of 
several hundred of an odd people, once through their fore¬ 
fathers Chinese, but now natives to the manor born. But 
a day’s good run from Amoy, on the China coast, it seems 
in its quiet to be almost in another world. 
Dodd was a good fellow and entertaining, and on 
Formosan affairs was considered authority, and we listened 
with interest to his yarns. Rumor said that a dusky 
princess among the Cannibals claimed our Consul as her 
liege lord, and that through this influence in court circles 
he held a talisman which gave him peculiar facilities for 
wandering among the mountains, and even encountering 
the dreaded “Hill Men,” and returning uneaten. Be this 
as it may, he neither denied nor affirmed it, and on this 
delicate point was not communicative, but of liis travels, 
trips and adventures, pow-wows with savage chiefs, flirta- 
fipns with cannibal maidens he told, and as we saw him after 
ull his perils sitting safely in our midst, surrounded by a 
dozen or so of the more favored of his canine family, we 
too were fired with the spirit of adventure, and resolved 
that the morrow should see us on our travels in search of 
the picturesque. 
Time though was limited, and between the rising and 
going down of the next day’s sun we must condense our wan¬ 
derings. So after voting down the Camphor forests and 
manufactories as too far away, the Keelung coal mines as 
not interesting enough, we settled unanimously on the 
Sulphur mines as being the very trip we wanted; so the 
Compradore was called and instructed to prepare such 
creature comforts as the day’s excursion would call for, the 
head boatman received his directions, and thus, having 
with a word or two to retainers, (such is life in the Orient,) 
made all of our preparations, we again abandoned ourselves 
Jq lagy comfort. 
The General was no novice in Formosa matters, his lusty 
legs had carried him over many a mile of mountain tramp" 
ing, and to his cool, clear head, his indomitable courage 
and his knowledge of human nature, displayed alike in his 
dealings with the simple but brave natives, and crafty, yet 
cowardly Chinese, many a poor ship-wrecked cast-away 
had owed his life, and had been spared a fate like that 
of the unfortunate Captain, wife and crew of the American 
ship “Rover,” who had been slaughtered in cold blood. 
Let me digress for a moment and briefly tell of the fate 
of these unfortunates. In 1867 the American clipper ship 
“Rover” struck upon reefs and was wrecked off the south¬ 
east end of Formosa. Captain Hunt, his wife and crew 
succeeded in reaching the shore. Seated on the sandy 
beach, at breakfast, a volley of musketry from hidden foes 
sent them all into eternity. They had braved the elements, 
but “Man’s inhumanity to man” destroyed them. Naught 
was heard of their fate until the General heard from the 
lips of the Chief of the Tribe the manner of the sacrifice. 
Le Gendre’s march across the mountains with the Chinese 
troops, whom he had persuaded the Emperor or rather 
Prince Kung, to place under his command, his cutting a road 
for artillery through the dense forests of teak and camphor 
trees, his building of a fort, * and then when thus prepared 
for war, his starting off unarmed and unattended, except 
by an interpreter, to interview the savage Chief, were feats 
of pioneering, which will forever associate his name with 
that of the Island. What Daniel Boone was to Kentucky, 
was Le Gendre to Formosa,and the latter was able to appre¬ 
ciate his own field of work, for he was lawyer, doctor, 
chemist, geologist, minerologist, diplomatist, and soldier 
combined, and with all a bon compagnon —brave as a lion, 
gentle as a woman, gay as a Frenchman, and as cunning as 
Macliiavelli. Then to describe the interview, when seated 
on the green sward, both unarmed, for when old Tauki-tok 
saw the noble courage and generous confidence of the 
White Chief, he too sent away his arms and escort, and 
the two extremes of chivalry, met on a common ground, 
and the savage succumbed to a moral force he could not 
counteract and forswore forever the vow that had been 
taken to last forever, and so ruthlessly kept, that all white 
men falling into their hands should suffer death. Two 
Chinese Mandarins of high rank had accompanied the ex¬ 
pedition to make terms for themselves,for between the “Sab- 
arees,” as the Aborigines of southern Formosa are called, 
and the Chinese there was deadly enmity. They too, sought 
an interview* “No,” said the stern old Chieftain, “the 
Chinese are women, they cannot see me. Brave men to 
brave men, women to women; I will send my daughters to 
talk with them, but it will be of no use. I will kill them 
wherever I find them,” and under escort of the General lie 
did send them, much to the celestial mortification and 
chagrin. But to return to Tamsui, here sat the General 
after all of his exploits, as much at his ease as the rest of 
us. I use the term “the General” so frequently that I must 
explain that it is legitimate, a five years’service in our war, 
during which liis body became a perfect lead mine; surely 
the General, with his crippled wrist, bullet-pierced face 
and shoulder and without his right eye, had earned the 
title which a full commission had given him. 
I was the only novice, my experience of this part of 
Formosa had been limited to the walk from the wharf to 
Dodd’s home, but I too, had met my perils, or thought so. 
As I landed, feme twenty ferocious-looking enormous dogs 
came rushing toward me, giving tongue in every note of the 
gamut. In a moment I was surrounded, but to my delight, 
with friends; they all seemed to welcome me as an acquain¬ 
tance, and hounding around and ahead of me, blood-hounds, 
kangaroo-hounds, mastiffs, deer-hounds, escorted me to the 
Consulate. But one, a nasty little Chinese cur showed any 
sign of hostility, and he was soon squelched by a large 
mastiff, who construed a snap the cur made at me as an in¬ 
sult to himself, and shook him accordingly. This ad¬ 
mirably trained pack have seen but few Europeans, and 
they always in the capacity of friends, so not one of them 
thought of molesting a foreigner, but woe betide the luck¬ 
less native whose bump of acquisitiveness should lead him 
to stray within the Consular Compound. Their reputation 
was spread far and wide among the natives, and under its 
aegis we slept in security. 
Morning came—a lovely one for our purposes; instead of 
the hot, calm,'sweltering atmosphere, usual at this season, 
a strong north-east gale was blowing, and pile after pile or 
thick slate-colored cumulous clouds came driving in from 
seaward and liid us from the devouring gaze of Old Sol. 
We had an eleven mile trip before us, eight by water, then 
two by paths across the plains to the foot of the mountains, 
then a mile to the summit, where amid eternal desolation 
and murky atmosphere, old Mother Earth gives vent to in¬ 
ward grief with sulphury tears, and with great sobs and 
gasps and sighs, relieves her inward troubles. Our boat 
was a fast and comfortable gig, propelled by six sturdy 
native oarsmen, and another followed with our Commis- 
sarial and Coolies. As we swiftly slid along the smooth 
river, we enjoyed a panorama both beautiful and strange. 
'Little bays with flat lands green with the young rice, hills 
three hundred feet in height were terraced to their summits, 
and every inch was under cultivation; little Chinese vil¬ 
lages, with mud huts, tiled roofs and quaintly ornamented 
temples or “Joss houses,” tucked away in sheltered 
corners; immense banyan trees, each tree a grove in itself, 
fishermen standing on the banks, naked but fora clout,like 
bronze statues, or from their campans skillfully casting 
their nets; duck tenders surrounded by hundreds of their 
waddling charges, and tremendous water buffaloes, with 
great corrugated horns and wicked eyes, feeding quietly 
along the banks, or catching our scent as we passed, eyeing 
us viciously, and betraying a disposition for a closer ac¬ 
quaintance, all these and many more curious sights added 
to the zest with which we enjoyed our holiday. From the 
river we turned into a narrow creek, and then soon into one 
still narrower, between whose sedgey sides our boat had 
barely room to push along, and thus winding our way into 
the heart of the country, the creek diminishing to a mere 
rivulet, we finally reached the head of navigation; and at a 
little stone landing worn down like the steps in Pompeii, 
by the naked feet of generations, we disembarked and pre¬ 
pared ourselves for a tramp across the rice flats. Far as 
the eye could see the country was squared off by raised 
paths, dividing adjacent plots of rice. The young shoots 
were just peeping above the syrface qf the water with which 
they were flooded. Here and there a clump of bamboos 
marked a spot of more solid ground, and hidden away 
among the shrubbery, we found as we approached cosy 
little villages, whose quaint architecture proclaimed the 
Chinese descent of the inhabitants, and whose people kind¬ 
ly welcomed us and feasted us with tea and cakes, and re¬ 
freshed us with pipes *nd samshu. Piseco. 
[to be continued.] 
FORAGING FOR ALLIGATORS—A MEXI¬ 
CAN WA R EXPE RIENCE. 
A S an article of diet perhaps the alligator may not be 
considered a success by those possessed of epicurean 
tastes, and I shall not attempt the tas^ of convincing such 
that alligator chops or alligator, fricassee deserve a place in 
the bill of fare at Delmonico’s. Nevertheless, I do affirm 
that having partaken thereof it was found to be a tooth¬ 
some dish. I will be frank, however, and state that it was 
served with that best of sauces, hunger. This by way of 
preface. . , 
In the latter part of the winter of ’48, during the war 
with Mexico, detachments of several regiments of volun¬ 
teers were at Camp Washington, near Vera Cruz, to one of 
which I belonged. Drill, target practice, and an occasional 
scout after guerillas occupied the time while waiting to do 
escort duty for a Government train for the city of Mexico. 
One afternoon the “Kentucky Rifles’* were having their 
practice, as usual, at a target painted upon the baggage 
board of a train wagon, and propped up on .the edgG of a 
sluggish creek which bordered one side of the camp and was 
filled with a rank growth of reeds. Most of the soldiers 
were off duty, and gathered around watching the superior 
shooting of the boys in> dark blue. Just as one had stepped 
the usual two paces in front a huge alligator thrust his head 
out from the .re3ds near the target, and turning it jauntily 
to one side rolled up his eye, presenting a beautiful mark, 
on which the marksman instantly drew a bead, sending the 
ball crashing through the eye and brain, and lodging be¬ 
neath the skin at the base of the skull (fh the opposite side. 
The shot was fatal, and soon the carcass was skinned, cut 
up, &nd divided among the men; a small portion of it fall¬ 
ing to my mess. While it was cooking I mentally reviewed 
the different kinds of game I had partaken of since becom¬ 
ing a soldier, commencing with crow stew at Fort Hamil¬ 
ton, Long Island—which was a dernier resort after the hen 
roosts of the farmers in the vicinity had ceased to honor 
our drafts—which my stomach rejected, owing perhaps to 
the too sudden change from turkey and chicken, and end¬ 
ing with parrots, two of which I had shot and eaten the 
day previous, the same having been broiled on the coals 
undrawn, and were delicious. 
The ’gator meat was soon cooked and disposed of, and 
declared by all to be very nice, and before we separated it 
was agreed to ask the ordeily to substitute us the next day 
in lieu of the regular detail for police duty; three of us to 
smuggle out our muskets and hunt for alligators. We were 
accepted, and left camp with muskets rolled up in our 
jackets and serenely hidden under the w.ater casks in the 
wagon. After getting beyond the main guard we sepa¬ 
rated, Jack H., Charley P., and myself constituting the 
foragiug party. 
Making a detour around the camp to the creek we began 
beating in supporting distance. Less than fifty yards had 
been covered when the violent swajdng of the reeds seemed 
to indicate our quarry. The game failing to show itself, 
we became impatient, and fired .in the direction of the 
swaying reeds. Imagine <*ur consternation on beholding, 
as the smoke lifted, not an alligator, but instead the head 
of a monster snake. Fear possessed us, and we started on 
the double quick, but finding we were not pursued halted: 
and held a “council of war.” Even at this late day I can¬ 
not recall the demoniacal expression of the reptile without 
a shudder. I have experienced the terrors of a storm at 
sea, been surrounded by a pack of snarling wolves, chased 
by a wounded wild bull on the table land, and been the 
target for an ambushed guerilla escopet. but neither nor all 
combined begat such blood-curdling fear, 
We reloaded, fixed bayonets, and cautiously advanced to 
within fifteen yards. At that distance we discovered a se¬ 
vere wound, about a foot back of its bead. A ball liad cut 
open the neck nearly to the spine, causing the head to droop 
somewhat. Its piercing eyes and darting tongue df fire 
seemed literally to rivet us to the spot. Charlie P. only 
seemed possessed of his faculties, and gave the word to fire, 
and three bullets and nine buckshot did their duty, and cut 
its head entirely off; but it was several hours ere its writh¬ 
ings ceased to allow us to drag it out on the sward, which 
was accomplished by thrusting bayonets through and lift¬ 
ing while standing astride it. We found it had gorged it¬ 
self apparently within two or three days with an ahix&aL 
the size of a small deer, which accounts for its not pursn 
ing us. We hunted no more alligators that day, bist re- 
turned to camp and related our adventure, but mosi of, oqr 
comrades pulled down the under eyelid and requested us to , 
“tell it to the marines.” The captain, however* gave L 
some credence, and the following day took fcip command < 
out for target practice, and made it in his. way to visit, the 
locality, where a sight of the monster pyovqdihq truth of 
our report, and Captain C. assured, ps it was a boa con¬ 
strictor, and our escape from destruction by it providen¬ 
tial. The creature measure feqt, C.L.W, 
