Sketches from Formosa.

A RETROSPECT AND A FORECAST 265
lifting, and probably not a more palatable fruit could be
found anywhere than the Sai-le loose-skinned oranges,
or those juicy and delicious little pumelos from Bun-tan.
During 1894 (the last complete year of Chinese rule),
twenty-one million pounds of tea, and over forty
thousand hundredweights of camphor, were shipped
from Formosa. It has been found that rich coal-fields
exist, not only in the north where they have long been
worked in European style but in the A-li-kang region,
twelve days' journey to the south of Tainan. The
petroleum wells at Toa-kho-ham, and the sulphur deposits
near Tamsui, could also be turned to great account ;
while it was owing to the recent war between China and
Japan that negotiations were broken off between the
Government of Formosa and the representatives of a
Chinese syndicate for conveying exclusive right to work
the gold-mines in the Island. In short, the wealth of
this still undeveloped country may be seen on con-
sidering that, during 1893, trade to the value of four
and a half million pounds sterling passed through the
ten or twelve European houses doing business there.
Within the limits of this sketch, it is not possible to
make anything like a complete statement regarding the
history of the Island. Traders from the mainland of
China began to visit it about the middle of the fifteenth
century. On nearing it, the sight presented was a wide
level shore in the foreground, with lofty mountains rising
range upon range into the interior, and this suggested
to them the Chinese name which it still bears, that of
Taiwan, or Terrace-beach. It was the same sight, a
hundred years later, which led some Portuguese adventurers
to shout out " "
Ilha Formosa ! or Beautiful
Isle ! another descriptive name which has now become
current all over the world. At that early time, the Island
was found thickly peopled by an aboriginal race, or