Sketches from Formosa.

THE JAPANESE AS COLONIZERS 313
property was situated. Now, in this remote part of our
field there were four chapels and adjoining rooms, with
little courts, the whole of which had been in use for
Church purposes before even Chinese officials had taken
up their residence in Po-li-sia, and at a time when legal
transactions among the Sek-hwan were gone about in a
very informal way. During those early years, both the
village elders and people welcomed the missionary, and
took the initiative themselves in erecting places of worship
on ground which did not belong to any private individual,
but to the whole tribal community. I stated the case
to Prefect Kinoshita before coming in to Po-li-sia, telling
him we had no title-deed for the property there, but that
we had been in undisturbed possession for about thirty
to which he replied by saying that he would send
years ;
instructions to the Local Offices to have our interests
placed upon a proper business footing.
As to the tenure of land in Formosa, it may be remarked
that, excluding those regions still under control
of the savage tribes, foreigners are permitted to hold
leases up to one hundred years in any part of the Island.
I did not, however, take advantage of this concession in
the present case, but saw the Japanese officials about
having deeds made out in the names of several Sek-hwan
but our
brethren acting on behalf of the native Church ;
carrying out of the subsequent details proved to be a very
tedious, irksome task. The ground and buildings on
each site had all to be carefully measured, and plans to
be made out for accompanying the deeds we afterwards
prepared ; which deeds, by the way, had to be written
out in duplicate more than once before every condition
was complied with. For example, one set was taken in
for registration having a number of finger-marks of persons
who could not write, but the papers were returned to us
with the remark that such signs had a very unsightly