At that time a Japanese colony was, with the permission of China, established at this point. The Dutch captain, after having first been refused by the Japanese land on which to build a depôt for his goods--or that portion which he had saved from the wreck--at last persuaded the men from Dai Nippon to allow him to build a depôt “if this could be built on ground no larger than that which could be covered with an ox-hide.” The “heaven-descended”[18] thought the _Ketto-jin_ (hairy barbarian) mad. They naturally were not familiar with the European classics. The Dutch captain apparently was, since he repeated the famous manœuvre--said to have been responsible for the founding of Carthage[19]--of cutting the ox-hide into very thin strips. With the raw hide rope thus made he succeeded in encircling a piece of ground amply large for the building of a goods depôt. The Chinese-Formosan, in relating this story, was so convulsed with laughter that, in spite of his excellent English, it was at first difficult to understand him. It seemed that what especially excited his risibility was the idea--to him ludicrous--that a man of any other nationality should be able to outwit a Japanese in a “sharp deal.” He declared the story “too good to be true,” but in the accounts of the early history of Formosa which I have read since hearing the Chinese-Formosan recount the story, there seems evidence for its verity. At the time, however, when this incident is supposed to have occurred--the early part of the seventeenth century--the Chinese were really the masters both of the Pescadores and of Formosa proper. It was they who, in 1622, gave the Dutch permission to establish a fort on one of the Pescadore islands. This was done under the command of Admiral Cornelius Reyersz, who wished to have a stronghold from which he could sally forth to attack the Portuguese at Macao. The next year an agreement was reached between Holland and China by which the Dutch were to remove from the Pescadores to Formosa. In 1624 the Dutch built Fort Zelandia, the ruins of which are still to be seen at Anping, the harbour-town near Tainan. The building of Fort Zelandia marked the beginning of Dutch dominance in Formosa, a period which, though lasting less than forty years, is one that has never been forgotten by the aboriginal inhabitants of the island, as I found later, when I went among them. During this time, however, the Dutch were not left in undisturbed control of the island. Another European nation cast covetous eyes upon the “Ilha Formosa.” Spain organised an expedition under the command of Don Antonio de Careño de Valdez, which in 1626 set forth from Manila, then a Spanish possession, and sailed north to the “Beautiful Island.” The Spaniards succeeded in establishing a colony at Keelung, which they called Santissima Trinidad, and afterwards built a fort--San Domingo--at the other northern port of the island, called by the Chinese and Japanese Tamsui.