Sketches from Formosa.

198
SKETCHES FROM FORMOSA
nothing to eat there and that no ;
one present was willing
to accompany me.
As their manifold reasons against my going only in-
creased my interest in this village of Pun-tih, I very
willingly faced the task of persuading them a little, with
the result that, in about an hour after, I was fairly on the
way. The preacher and an experienced old native came
with me, and we had gone but a very little distance when
it was found that certainly no exaggeration had been
made about the steepness and roughness of the road. We
went scrambling and sliding down, down, and still further
down and ; any narrow platform we did reach seemed
but the commencement of a yet more difficult stage of the
journey. About half-way up the side of the opposite
hill, a curious kind of stone enclosure containing the
skulls of murdered Chinamen arrested our attention. It
must be understood that the natives here conform to the
practice of head-hunting. On the very morning of the
day I am now writing about, I pointed with strong disapprobation
to a freshly broken-in skull before a number
of the Ka-piang villagers, but they immediately and with
great emphasis shouted out, Lang-wah ! Lang-wah !
that all their customs in connection with this
meaning
practice of head-hunting were not only blameless, but
greatly to be commended.
After all, there was not very much to reward us in this
village of Pun-tih ; less, no doubt, than if we had been
accompanied by our obliging old interpreter. The
resident Chief there also is a woman ; a young person,
who, when called for, came out and sat down at some
little distance ; the grown-ups gathering round and
giving us every assistance they could. I wrote down
a number of their words. It seems evident that a close
bond of connection runs through all those widely-
so much so,
differing aboriginal languages of Formosa ;