Untitled

284
EAST ASIA.
extent and very mountainous, they are thinly peopled by a few tribes, some of
whom, like those of Yonakuni, are still in the savage state.
Towards its southern extremity the only geographical dependence of Formosa
is the hilly island of Betel Tobago. But in the Fokien Strait, on the west side,
the Pescadores (Panghu) group possesses considerable importance as a shipping
station and entrepot between Formosa and the mainland. The inhabitants,
estimated at about 180,000, are occupied with fishing and agriculture. But the
yield of rice and millet being insufficient for their wants, they depend partly
on Formosa for their sustenance. Here the fierce winter gales sometimes blow
Fig. 136. G HAS D LU-CHEW, ACCORDING TO AN OLD CHINESE MAP.
down or tear up the trees by the roots. The village of Makung is the capital of
this group.
MATERIAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF CHINA.
AFTER the tremendous losses attending the civil wars and other disasters, by
which the country has been wasted since the middle of the present century, the
population has again entered on a period of increase. Celibacy outside the
monasteries is almost unknown in China, where all marry young, and where the
average number of children is "
greater than elsewhere. There are three sins
against filial piety," says Mengtze, " and of the three the is
greatest
to leave no
posterity." Celibacy is even forbidden, and the mandarins have the right to
compel men after their thirtieth, and women after their twentieth, year to get
married. The population would double in about twenty years but for the civil
wars, massacres, and famines, and the universal peace now prevailing has certainly
already added tens of millions to the population. The increase is, moreover, largely
due to the migrations of the natives of Sechuen, Fokien, and Shansi ; that is, of the
most industrious and enterprising citizens of the Middle Kingdom.
The actual density of the population can only be surmised from old estimates,
whose real value has never been clearly determined. Nevertheless it is certain
that in this respect China cannot be compared with Western Europe, parts of the