On returning to Kagi I left Price for a time and went with Shirasawa to Taiwanfoo, an old Chinese seaport where Swinhoe resided when he was Consul here. Here I engaged a new Chinese servant, as our Singapore boy was of no use owing to his inability to understand the language. We then went on by rail to Takao on the coast, where we slept, and thence by steamer to a place called Taihanroku in the bay between the south-west and southern capes of Formosa. It blew so hard off shore that we could only land in a lighter which was warped off. Here we were met by some Japanese officials, who conducted us in chairs to Koshun, the name for this curious district, which is quite unlike anything I had seen before, both in soil and in climate, The country at the south end of the island is a dry coralline limestone, with very little water at this season, and though the weather was very much hotter than in the north, a strong dry north¬ east wind was continually blowing day and night. Here there are another large experimental farm and a forestry station, where many kinds of trees and plants were being tried, at a place called Kuraru, under the direction of Mr. Inamura, who put us up in his house. There were a good many ebony trees here, Diospyros utilis, but the large ones have been cut. The only handsome flower I saw wild here at this season was Alpinia nutans, but in Mr. Inamura’s house were some very beautiful plants in flower of Phalænopsis aphrodite, which used to be common here as an epiphyte on the ebony trees. It begins to flower in December at the end of the rainy season and lasts till March, and is the finest orchid known in Formosa, though very difficult to grow at home, A plant established on a tree fern had twenty spikes of large white flowers with pink and violet markings. There were several trees in this district producing very fine timber, among them the best are Terminalia catappa, Hernandia peltata, Diospyros melanoxylon, Calophyllum inophyllum, and Pistacia formosana. But here, as in many tropical countries, they are not numerous or accessible enough to have much value except for local use. Shirasawa agreed with me that this district is unfit for afforestation, and that most of the money which is being spent here will be wasted. The high wind blew all night, but in the sheltered hollows and ravines of the coralline limestone I found a few birds, and more butterflies than I had hitherto seen elsewhere. Among them were a pair of the large Hestia, which I had hitherto associated with purely tropical evergreen forest, and five or six species of Papilios very like Indian species. Hardly any showy plants were in flower.
On February 21st we went back to the place where we had landed in chairs, and then put our luggage on trucks pushed by coolies on a light railway through a curious country in which a palm, Phœnix Hanceana, forms a wild open forest growing up to 20 or 30 feet high, but more usually a stunted bush. I saw no other trees today except Pandanus and a few figs near villages. At Koshun, where we changed bearers, is a large square fortification, this having been a Chinese headquarters station when they governed the island. Our baggage was carried today by coolies, mostly females, apparently half-breeds between Chinese and aborigines, who are impressed for such work by the police. Noticing that two of them had babies on their backs, I objected to their being made
