Sketches from Formosa.

THE JAPANESE AS COLONIZERS 329
allowed to take quiet possession, they found the people
everywhere up in arms against them, and had literally
to fight their way from North to South before anything
like settled government could be established. Moreover,
as the mountainous eastern half of the Island affords a
ready asylum to fugitives from justice, it has always
been very difficult to deal with insurrectionary movements
there, this accounting for the firm measures which had
to be employed at the beginning of the Japanese occupa-
tion.
Immediately after some measure of peace
had been
brought about, the Executive sent out qualified experts
to engage in survey work and to report on the resources
of their newly-ceded territory. At an early stage,
periodicals were also started for receiving contributions
from non-official scholars and explorers, on the natural
features, topography, products, and ethnology of the
Island. The materials thus brought in and now stored
up in Government Reports, monthly and fortnightly
journals, and the daily newspapers published at
Taihoku, Taichu, and Tainan, make up a far more
valuable bibliography than anything which has been
produced by Chinese and European writers on Formosa.
Thus, the Handbook of the Tokyo Geographical Society
is full of information, while the Journal of the Formosan
Association maintains its high character in being a
perfect storehouse of facts on everything relating to the
Island. There are also Philological, Folklore, Law, and
Trade journals issued at Taihoku.
Running contemporaneously with it, and as an outcome
from all this work, a complete census of the population
was taken in 1897, 800 miles of roads were made,
and a tramway line down from Takow to Sin-tek. This
was followed by construction of the main line of railway
from Keelung to Takow, about one-half of which has