Sketches from Formosa.

322
SKETCHES FROM FORMOSA
being paid will thus be apparent. I was going to a
Temple of Koxinga, and the crowds now making their
pilgrimage to it were being comforted here and there with
veiled remarks about Koxinga having served them well
on a former occasion, and that it was hard to say what
he might be willing to do for them again. I thought
it as well that Mrs. Campbell should not accompany
me to Sa-te-chu, so left her to await my return in a little
market-town some five miles to the south of it, only a
young native coming with me as travelling companion,
and to assist in making observations. The village lies
on the south bank of the Tai-kah river and is about
three miles inland from the coast-line. It presented a
busy scene on the day of my visit, for the usual daily
four to five thousands of pilgrims were pressing in, all of
them eager to engage in the various observances which
others had gone through. These observances included
the burning of incense-sticks and gilt paper inside
the shrine, obtaining protection against the prevalent
epidemic by suspending little packets of incense-ashes
from their necks, and filling their bottles from the well
behind the Temple. For several reasons,
I did not
consider the occasion a suitable one for open-air preaching,
but I mingled freely amongst the people, who were quite
communicative, telling me where they lived, what led
some of them to come very long distances, and the benefits
they hoped to derive from dosing themselves with the
"
Holy-water." The mass of them impressed me as
being wholly innocent of uniting in any rising against the
Japanese, although
I believe that observant mischief-
makers were not far off, and were prepared to turn things
a view of the position which
to their own advantage ;
seemed to be correct from the fact that, on several rival
shrines having been set up in other places, the movement