Sketches from Formosa.

PIONEERING ON THE PESCADORES 175
shells which may still be found embedded in the earth,
or lying on the open ground in the neighbourhood of
Ma-keng. No fewer than five accidents, causing the
death of a least twenty persons, have taken place through
the recklessness of avaricious Chinamen, who will persist
in trying to make money from those dangerous articles.
They succeeded in unfastening one of the shells, and in
selling the powder inside for three hundred cash, but
their usual method of procedure is to hurl heavy
stones at
them, in the hope of obtaining a larger sum for the broken
pieces of metal which may afterwards be picked up. At
the latest of these tragic occurrences, one young man
survived the accident, but two of his companions were
blown into a thousand fragments. I happened to be
near the spot at the time, and I called upon the District
Magistrate to suggest that all the remaining shells should
be carefully taken on board a fishing boat and dropped
into twenty fathoms of water, but His Honour's only
response was a faint smile.
Another somewhat mournful fact which may be men-
tioned here is suggested by the sight of the three lonely
cemeteries containing the remains of those officers and
men of the French force who died from sickness or from
wounds. The further off is situated at the foot of the
low-lying hill opposite Junk Bay, the two others being on
the plain overlooking Ma-keng and within full view of the
waters of Dashing Lake Harbour. Considering the shortness
of their stay on the Pescadores, and the total number
of graves to be seen, the death-roll of the French must
have been a very alarming one. The Chinese themselves
admit that this was not wholly on account of the fighting,
and they still speak with something like genuine sympathy
of the frequency with which victims of fever and cholera
were carried out to their last resting-place. The walls,
gates, wooden crosses, and other property connected with