with the Chinese colonists who have been gradually encroaching on their mountain territory, which they gradually bring under cultivation.
The occupation of the island by the Japanese took place in 1895, and there was little or no difficulty with the Chinese inhabitants of the plains and lower hill country which comprises the western half of the island. The subjection of the savage or semi-savage tribes of the south soon followed, but there remained a tract of country along the cast coast, where very steep cliffs and the absence of harbours make it almost in¬ accessible in the rainy season. Then, too, there is a great mass of forest- clad mountains in the north and central parts of the island, which have been the scene of a deadly warfare between the Japanese military police and the warlike tribes; these are not only unexplored and unsurveyed, but it is impossible to enter them without a strong military force. Many expeditions have been made, and by degrees outlying parts of these mountains arc cut off, and the inhabitants driven out or starved into submission. But the tribes who still hold out defy the Japanese, and lose no opportunity of raiding the frontier settlements and attacking the Chinese camphor collectors and the police who try to protect them, A guard line had been cut through the forest for 400 miles, with fortified posts and block houses at short intervals and protected by live electric wires, but notwithstanding all these efforts the savages still held out in 1912.
After some consultation with the forest officials, and with the very courteous and obliging gentleman, Mr. Miyoshi, who at that time was foreign secretary, it was decided that we should first visit Arisan, where the finest forests and scenery in the island are found. Before leaving, we visited the camphor factory, where all the crude camphor, one of the most valuable products of the island, is distilled and packed for export, as it is a monopoly of the Government here as in Japan.
The Botanic Gardens are on rather heavy flat soil, then sodden by rain, and not very suitable for the purpose as far as I could judge. But as the gardens were quite new and this was the winter season in North Formosa, there was not much to see. I found a very clever little botanist, Mr. Tashiro, who remembered meeting me at the Botanical Congress at Petrograd twenty-five years before. In the Museum we found a mixed collection of natural history specimens and economic products of the island, and arranged with one of the employees, a very clever little man named Kiguchi, to come with us to Arisan and assist in collecting. I also visited the Agricultural Experimental Station, where several breeds of cattle, pigs and sheep were being tried; but as far as I could see and learn afterwards, buffaloes, which arc preferred by the Chinese both for milk and for ploughing, and pigs, which are the Chinese favourites, are the only kinds of live-stock which thrive well in the island.
The sky cleared up that day, but there was a cool north-cast breeze, and the temperature did not exceed between 55° and 65°. At lunch we were entertained by a rich Chinese merchant, Lim-Nee-kar, a native of Amoy, from which province most of the Formosan Chinese originally came, and whose dialect they speak. Our Chinese boy from Singapore could not understand the people here at all, and very few of the Japanese
