Sketches from Formosa.

XXXII
PIONEERING ON THE PESCADORES
THE Pescadores, consisting of over twenty inhabited
islands, besides several islets and rocks, lie off the southwest
coast of Formosa at a minimum distance of about
twenty-five miles, the entire group being set down on the
charts as extending from latitude 23 12' to 23 47' N.
and from longitude 119 19' to 119 41' E. They form
together the Dashing Lake (Phi-aw) County or Ting of
the Taiwan (Formosa) Prefecture, and are placed under
the control of resident civil and military mandarins,
who report to their superior officers at Taiwan-fu.
According to surveys made by the late Captain Collin-
son, R.N., the largest island is forty-eight miles, and the
second largest seventeen miles, in circumference. The
former of these occupies a north-east position, and is
known in native statistical books by the name of Great
Island ;
while the latter is situated at an average distance
of fully three miles west from Great Island, and is called
West Island by the Chinese, and Fisher Island by Euro-
peans.
Ma-keng, on the south-west end of Great Island, is
the principal town of the group. It overlooks one of the
inlets of the large, well-sheltered harbour of the same
name, and is the headquarters of a considerable junk
trade which is carried on between those islands and the
west coast of Formosa. The passage between Great
Island and Fisher Island is narrowed very much at its
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