Formosa lies about a thousand miles south of Kobe--six hundred and sixty miles, it is estimated, south of Kagoshima, the southernmost point of Japan proper--and the voyage of four days down through the Tung Hai (Eastern China Sea) was a warm one, the latter part especially. Before Keelung was reached, the wraps that had been comfortable when leaving Japan were discarded in favour of the thinnest clothing that could be unpacked from bags or steamer-trunk. Two Scottish missionaries, returning to their work among the Chinese-Formosan in the southern part of the island, were the only other foreigners[11] (white people) on board. The other passengers--certainly of first and second class--were, with one exception, Japanese; chiefly Japanese officials, who, with their families, were going to take up their duties in the island colony of the empire; or to resume these duties after a summer vacation spent in Japan. The one exception was--as exceptions usually are--the most interesting person on board. This was a Chinese-Formosan; one who, in the days before the Japanese possession, had belonged to one of the “old” families of the island--as people all over the world are accustomed to reckon age in connection with “family” (_au fond_, how curiously alike are we all--Oriental and Occidental--in the little snobbishnesses that make up the sum of human pride--and human childishness). [Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE OLD CHINESE WALL _Formerly surrounding the city of Taihoku, the capital of Formosa._] At any rate, in the days when “old” families in Formosa meant also wealthy families, this Chinese-Formosan, then young, had been sent to Hongkong, to be educated in an English college there. Consequently it was in excellent English that he told me something both of the early history of Formosa, as this had been recorded in old Chinese manuscripts, and also something of the traditions of the Chinese peasantry regarding the origin of the island. This--the origin--was connected, as are almost all things else in China, in the minds of the people, with the dragon. It seems that, according to popular legend--which the early Chinese geographers repeated in all seriousness--the particular dragon which was responsible for the origin of Formosa was one of more than usual ferocity. The home of this prince among dragons was Woo-hoo-mun (Five Tiger Gate), which lies at the entrance of Foochow, a town on the South China coast. One day his dragonship, being in a frolicsome mood, went for a day’s sport in the depths of the ocean. In his play he brought up from the ocean-bed sufficient earth to mould into a semblance of himself; Keelung being the head; the long, narrow peninsula, ending in Cape Garanbi, the southernmost point of the island, being the tail; the great mountain-range running from north to south--of which Mt. Sylvia and Mt. Morrison[12] are the two highest peaks--representing the bristling spines on the back of the dragon.