Nor were the Japanese pirates allowed to reap the harvest alone. At the same time that these men had headquarters at Keelung, in the north of Formosa, Chinese pirates had established headquarters near Tainan, in the southern part of the island. If the records report truly, the intercourse between the Chinese and Japanese pirates does not seem to have been unfriendly, even while their respective nations were at war with each other--outlaws presumably being absolved from the obligations of patriotism. This state of affairs lasted for over a hundred years. During the sixteenth century Formosa, which was then known to the Japanese as “Takasago,” seems to have become a sort of “clearing-house” between China and Japan--a link between nations the “respectable” portions of whose populations were estranged. In the early part of that century the Chinese pirates were united under the leadership of Gan Shi-sai, grandfather of the famous Koksinga, shrines to whose memory recently erected by the Japanese--because it has been learned that his mother was a Japanese--one sees everywhere in Formosa at the present time.[16] The sixteenth century was a rather noteworthy one in the history of Formosa. It was during this century that the Hakkas--the outcaste class of China--fled to Formosa to escape persecution in the mother-country. And more important, at least from the European point of view, it was in the sixteenth century that Europeans first learned--as far as there is any record--of the existence of the island. It is sometimes said that the Portuguese had a fort in Keelung about 1590. Of this there seems to be no definite proof. Not only was this the opinion of the Chinese-Formosan who first gave me in outline the history of the island, but later investigation on my own part failed to find proof, or even trustworthy evidence, of the existence of such a fort. However, there can be little doubt that the Portuguese navigators, sailing down the west coast of the island, gave to it the name by which it is known to-day to Europeans--“Ilha Formosa” (Beautiful Island).[17] The Dutch navigator Linschotten, in the employ of the Portuguese, so recorded it in his chart in the latter part of the sixteenth century. It was early in the next century that the Dutch, as a nation, first came into touch with Formosa. In 1604 the Dutch admiral, Van Narwijk, sailed for Macao, in the south of China; but a typhoon--that frequent occurrence in the China Sea--drove him to the Pescadores. While there he gained a knowledge of the near-by large island of Formosa, which knowledge, it is said, was responsible for the later--temporary--Dutch dominance of the island. Another typhoon, however, resulting in another wreck, brought about the actual first landing of Dutchmen on Formosa proper. This was in 1620, when a Dutch merchant ship was wrecked near the present town of Tainan.