THE AWAKENING OF FORMOSA.1

By Major OWEN RUTTER, F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I.

(With Illustrations.)

FORMOSA lies like the centre of a chain of stepping-stones, unequal in size, set between Japan and Borneo; 650 miles to the north lies Japan, 250 miles to the south the Philippine Islands begin, 100 miles to the west is the mainland of China, while the nearest land on the east is the Hawaian Islands, 5000 miles across the wide Pacific.

The island is about 250 miles long and 80 miles in width, with an area of 14,000 miles, and is thus about twice the size of Wales.

According to the Chinese geographers of old, it had a very peculiar origin. It is said that on the mainland of China lived five dragons, who one day came out into the China Sea for a swim. When they arrived at the spot where the island now lies they became very playful, dived down and ploughed the bottom of the sea until a series of hills and mountains was heaved up above its floor. The results of the dragons' gambols were some peculiar characteristics of the island, which have greatly influenced its history. For it is divided, almost as if some one had drawn a line down the centre, into two halves, a western and an eastern.

On the west there are fertile plains and well-watered valleys-this is the sunny side, the side that has been awakened and developed by the Japanese. From Takao, the southern port, runs a railway to the capital, Taihoku, in the north, a few miles from which is Keelung, the principal harbour. The railway runs through a prosperous country in strange contrast to the eastern or second half of the island, which is composed mainly of range after range of jungle hills and tumbling streams where live the aborigines whom the Japanese are still unable to subdue, although it is twenty-eight years since they obtained possession of the island from China. On the coast the cliffs rise to a sheer 8000 feet above the sea, the highest in the world, while in the centre lie the great mountains, of which Mount Morrison is the highest, being 13,015 feet and so the loftiest mountain in the Japanese Empire.

There are three main divisions of the population in Formosa. First there are the Japanese, the ruling class supplying the Government officials, military and police officers, and what we should call the professional men. Then come the Formosans, who are descendants of the Chinese settlers of old; they do not intermarry with Japanese or aborigines and are almost indistinguishable from pure Chinese. Formosans number 3 millions, and the aborigines, the third group, about 120,000, but they give more trouble than all the Formosans put together.

1 A lecture delivered before the Society in Edinburgh on February 12.

The

At Takao we were taken to see a sugar factory. Sugar is one of the industries which the Japanese have developed in Formosa. The industry is one of the few that is not a Government monopoly, but it has been developed on a large scale and has paid enormous dividends. The cane is grown by the Formosan farmers in small allotments, and the sugar companies, whose capital is of course Japanese, run light railways through the fields. The loaded trucks are then taken to the factory and the cane is sent up a rollered shoot and then begins to go through the various processes of manufacture, so that the cane comes in at one end

in its natural state and goes out at the other in the form of sugar crystals packed up in mats for export.

The southern capital of the island is Tainan. The chief activity in the neighbourhood now is salt manufacture, which is a state monopoly. The coast here is very flat, and the salt is obtained by letting the sea water into little square vats paved with brick and allowing it to evaporate. The salt is then simply swept up into heaps by coolies, as snow is swept. up in a London street.

Fishing is another industry along the coast, and the Formosan fishingboats are some of the strongest in the world. They are made of bamboo with a single sail, and a wooden bucket is placed for passengers to keep them dry. Yet although the so-called deck is always awash, these boats go far out to sea, in spite of the violent storms which rage along the coasts at certain periods of the year. Yet another activity of the Formosans is lantern painting.

From Tainan we travelled on by the excellant Formosan railway to Kagi (pronounced Kangy), where we were taken over the Government sawmill, which is equipped with the latest American machinery and deals chiefly with the valuable cedar wood from Ari, the great sacred mountain of Formosa.

Near Kagi is Taichu, the third city of Formosa. Like all modern Japanese towns, it is a place of contrasts. The barracks are built entirely on Western lines, but nevertheless Taichu has one thing of beauty and that is its park. Every Japanese town is intensely proud of its park, and so well disciplined are the inhabitants that it is not necessary to disfigure the parks with railings or keep-off-the-grass notices and you never see a paper bag.

From Taichu we continued our journey north by railway to Taihoku. Like those of Japan proper, the Formosan railways are organised on American lines, and the excellent system of "checking" luggage prevails, whereby the annoyance of travel is reduced to a minimum.

As we got into the open country we began to realise how the island justifies the name Formosa-Beautiful-first given it by the Portuguese. As I have said, the towns themselves are, for the most part, anything but beautiful, and the modern buildings are mainly hideous. But beyond them one passes through mile after mile of terraced fields, trim and fertile ; every now and then we crossed a wide pebbly river, while away to the east rose the forest-clad chains of hills. Over the smiling plains were dotted little farm-houses with thatched roofs, girt with towering bamboo hedges these were the houses of the Formosan farmers. : there we saw one splashing through a wet rice field guiding a primitive wooden plough drawn by an ungainly water buffalo, or letting water into the fields, for rice has to be planted in standing water. Here and there were groups of women and children planting out the tender green shoots, thigh-deep in mud. There seemed hardly an acre of ground that was not under cultivation.

Here and

Taihoku is undoubtedly laid out on a finer scale than any other city in the Empire; although the island only came into their hands after the war with China twenty-seven years ago, the Japanese have made wonderful developments, and have poured money into the construction of the capital; the streets are wide and some of the public buildings would not disgrace any city in the world. The Government offices alone cost over £300,000; we went up the little tower that surmounts them to see the view, and it seemed to us a piece of rather violent (but very typical) extravagance that it should have been fitted with a special lift, used for no other purpose than to save would-be sightseers like ourselves the trouble of walking up a few stairs. At the same time there are still

remnants of the old Chinese city.

The British Consulate in Formosa is situated about an hour's run by train from Taihoku, at the mouth of the Tamsui River. It is a delightful spot. The consulate itself is an old fort built by the Dutch several hundred years ago after they had driven out a Spanish settlement, much

in the same way as they were driven out later by the Chinese general Koxinga. The Consul's house stands upon the hill close by, built of red brick mellow with age, with paved floors and a pleasant garden that stretches down the hill. Here we were interested to find strawberries growing cheek by jowl with tropical fruit, sweet peas and nasturtiums with hibiscus. It was a gardener's paradise. We spent a delightful day with the Consul and his wife; after many months in the tropics the house had an atmosphere of England, one of the reasons being that there was a cheery fire burning in the grate.

Next morning we left Taihoku for the country of "the savages." After an hour by train we found coolies and "push-cars

waiting for us.

The push-car is a light trolley with a brake, running on a line of about eighteen inches gauge, the sleepers being mere billets of wood. Along this line the car is pushed by coolies; one is sufficient on the flat, uphill two are necessary, but it is when going downhill that the fun begins and one has all the excitements of a prolonged journey on a rather flimsy scenic railway. At present only the main towns of Formosa are connected by roads, and the outlying districts are linked up with push-car lines, of which there are over six hundred miles in the island. Sedan chairs had been placed for us in the trolleys. After about an hour and a half's run across the plains we began to get up into the hills and left the fertile valley far below us, looking with its closely packed rice fields like a jigsaw puzzle put together by a clever hand.

Soon we came to more isolated cultivation, patches of tea and rice,

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with the little thatched mud houses of the Formosans clustering here and there upon the slopes. We stopped for tea and bananas at a wayside. police station, whose trim garden was abloom with roses and azaleas, and broke off to visit a native village whose inhabitants were what is called "tamed savages." They had in some measure adopted the dress of the Chinese Formosans. At last, having climbed up to fifteen hundred feet, we reached the little station of Kapanzan. The station stands on a plateau high above the Tamsui, now nothing but a mountain stream. The hills all round, covered with a tangle of forest and here and there with a patch of cultivation, might have dropped out of Borneo.

We were

lodged in the Government rest-house, which overlooks the deep-cleft. valley. The Chief of Police took us round the station, where everything was very neat; the barracks and police quarters were spotless, and we were surprised to find that even in this far-away outpost in the hills there was electric light. We went on to the school for the children of the aborigines, the schoolmaster being a member of the police force. The children were brought out, dressed in uniform grey kimonos and caps, and gave an exhibition of musical drill, the singing being in Japanese. They bowed profoundly to us in the Japanese fashion when the parade was over. A few mothers, who were allowed to come and see their offspring, were sitting about smoking long pipes with tiny brass bowls; they wore long cloths of brilliant colours hanging from their shoulders to the ankles, and their faces were tattooed in an extraordinary fashion