FORMOSANS.. 
67 
tbosre savages who consider a wife and cldld as things rather necessary, 
than desirable or worthy of their regard and esteem. 
From the numbers that were seen assembled at every village, in 
coasting along, it w'as conjectured that the inhabitants of this island 
are pretty numerous. Including the straggling houses, it was compu- 
ted there might perhaps be, in the whole island, sixty such villages as 
that near which our ships anchored ; and allowing five persons to 
each house', there would be in every village 500, or 30,000 in all upon 
the island. This is by no means exaggerated ; for there were some- 
times 3000 people at least collected upon the beach, when it could not 
be supposed that above a tenth part of the natives were present. 
Formosans. 
These are the inhabitants of the island of Formosa. These Indians 
are distributed into forty-five villages, thirty- six of which lie to the 
north, and nine towards the south. The northern villages are very 
populous, and the houses almost after the Chinese manner. The 
habitations of the southern islanders are only heaps of huts, or cot- 
tages of earth. In these huts they have neither chairs, benches, 
tables, beds, nor any piece of furniture ; the middle part is occupied 
by a kind of hearth or chimney raised two feet high, and constructed 
of earth, upon which they dress their victuals. Their ordinary food 
is rice, other small grain, and the game which they catch by coursing 
or kill with their arms. These islanders run with such surprising 
swiftness, that they can almost outstrip the fleetest greyhound. The 
Chinese attribute this agility to the precaution they take of confin- 
ing their knees and reins by a close bandage, till the age of fourteen 
or fifteen. 
Their favourite arms are lances, which they dart to the distance 
of sixty or eighty feet with the greatest dexterity and precision. 
They use bows and arrows, and can kill a pheasant on the wing with 
as much certainty as an European sportsman could with a fusee. 
They are very dirty in their manner of eating. They have neither 
plates, dishes, nor spoons, nor even small sticks as used in China. 
Whatever they dress is placed on a plain board or mat, and they 
use their fingers to convey it to their mouths. They eat flesh half 
raw ; if it has been only presented to the fire, it appears to them 
excellent. Their beds are formed of fresh-gathered leaves. They go 
almost linked, and wear only a piece of cloth which hangs from their 
girdle to their knees. Those among them who have borne away the 
prize for agility in running, or dexterity in the chase, obtain the 
honourable privilege of marking on their skin, by a very painful 
operation, several fantastical figures of flowers, trees, and animals. 
All have a right of blackening their teeth, and of wearing ornaments 
of bracelets and crowns made of shells and crystals. 
The islanders who inhabit the northern part, where the climate is 
something colder, clothe themselves with the skins of the stags which 
they kill in hunting. They make a kind of dress of them without 
sleeves, that pretty much resembles a dalmatic, or vestment worn at 
the altar by the Roman clergy. They wear on their heads caps in 
