Sketches from Formosa.

XLIV
A RETROSPECT AND A FORECAST
UNTIL 1895, Formosa formed the nineteenth and only
insular province of China, but after coming briefly under
a Republican form of government, it became an integral
part of the Empire of Japan. Even from the geographical
standpoint, rapid changes of this kind carry with them
a good deal of interest ; but when one thinks of the
effect throughout China and elsewhere of those further
changes which the Japanese have already commenced
in their newly-acquired territory, it will be admitted
that no apology is needed for submitting a few remarks
about this important and very productive Island.
Roughly speaking,
out from the Chinese mainland ; the south-eastern part
of the channel being occupied by the small Pescadores
it stands about a hundred miles
group, which formerly made up a Ting, or sub-prefecture,
of Formosa. A careful calculation from the latest
Admiralty chart makes out the area of the Island to be
14,982 miles, its length from north to south 245 miles,
and its greatest width 80 miles ;
the whole extent being
thus larger than Holland, and about one-half the size of
Scotland.
It is now well known that the eastern side of Formosa
is very mountainous, that its long, bisecting middle
range attains a height of over 13,000 feet, and that several
spurs away to the north-east form the highest sea-cliffs
in the world. Those lofty masses, rising some 7,000
feet sheer from the water's edge, and wooded to the
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