bold spirit of adventure, and entertain a wholesome dread of these highlanders. They are not without good grounds for their fears ; for in one village at least, a missionary, who lately repair- ed thither, found the men adorning their huts with skulls of their Chinese foes, and the report goes that they are cannibals too. Strangely enough the weapons and ammunition used by the hill tribes to destroy wild animals and Chinamen are sup- pUed by the Chinese themselves.
Family ties between the wild hill-tribes and the Pepohoans are kept up by constant intermarriage. * The wedding ceremony is a simple one. The father of the lady merely takes his daughter by the hand and passes her over to her lord, and then there is a drinking-revel to conclude the rites. In the old Dutch accounts of the people it is said that the offer of a pre- sent by a suitor and its acceptance by the lady, entitles the giver to be esteemed the legal husband, according to the rule "Nuptias non concubitus sed concensus facit" ; and the marriage tie is with equal facility dissolved. Indeed it would almost seem as if the "Free Lovers" of America had borrowed their creed of inconstancy and their fickle practices from the unchivalrous Formosan tribes.
Hong, having at length appeared, gave us a cordial welcome to his house, insisting on the sacrifice of a pig for the more perfect accomplishment of hospitable rites. The porker was therefore slaughtered before the door and in the presence of a pack of half-starved hunting-dogs that fought savagely over the drops of blood. My boy Ahong set it down as his solemn belief that these people could not, after all, be classed as utter
- See for further information, Natives of the West Coast of Formosa^
translated from an old Dutch work, by Rev. W. Lobschied.
