For some years it seems there was a struggle between the Dutch and Spanish for the domination of the island. Then in 1641 the greater part of the Spanish troops in Formosa were recalled to Manila, in order to take part in an expedition against the Moors[20] in Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippine group. This gave the Dutch an opportunity of which they were not slow to take advantage. They renewed their attacks upon the Spanish garrison, now greatly weakened. The following year--1642--this surrendered, and the last Spaniard--including the priests and the Dominican Friars, who had come over with Don Careño de Valdez--left the island. The Dutch were now left for a time undisputed masters of Formosa. They built forts on the ruins of those evacuated by the Spanish at Tamsui and Keelung. The old Dutch fort at Tamsui is still standing, and is in a good state of preservation. It has walls eight feet thick, and is used to-day as the British Consulate of the island.[21] For about twenty years after the Spanish surrender in Formosa, Dutch prosperity in the island was at its height. It is said that during this time there were nearly three hundred villages under Dutch jurisdiction, divided for convenience of administration into seven provinces. The population of these villages, while recorded as being “native,” evidently consisted of Chinese-Formosans. Finding that agriculture was not progressing among these people, the Dutch minister, Gravius, is said to have sent to the East Indies for “water-buffaloes,” the so-called caribou, and when these arrived he distributed them among the Chinese population of the island. “Water-buffaloes”--descendants of those imported by the seventeenth-century Dutch--are used to-day by the Chinese-Formosans for ploughing their rice-paddies (see illustration). [Illustration: “CARIBOU,” OR WATER-BUFFALO, USED BY THE CHINESE-FORMOSANS. _This is said to be a descendant of those introduced by the Dutch in the seventeenth century._] [Illustration: MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN (MEN CROUCHING, WOMEN STANDING) OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE ON A STATE VISIT TO THE CITY OF TAIHOKU.] Besides the Chinese population of Formosa under Dutch administration, the aboriginal tribes in the mountains also acknowledged Dutch supremacy, as they had never acknowledged Chinese, and as, more recently, they have never been reconciled to Japanese. Later, when I myself went among the aborigines, I received interesting confirmation of the account given me by the Chinese-Formosan on the boat, as the reason, apparently, that I was able to get into as close touch with them as I did was because they regarded me as the reincarnation of one of the seventeenth-century Dutch, whose rule over them, three hundred years ago, has become a sacred tradition.