I clung to the ladder until the crest of a wave brought the little canoe sufficiently high for me to drop into the arms of the chief, who deposited me, also the small bag I had with me--which one of the crew of the steamer had thrown down to him--in the bottom of the boat. Then shouting an order to the men in the several other canoes, the chief and the one other man in the same canoe with him--and me--began to paddle for shore. The order that the chief shouted was evidently to the effect that the men in the other boats were to wait and get certain things from the steamer, for on looking back, when the canoe in which I was rose on the crest of a wave, I could see bundles being lowered from the ship’s side into the canoes. What these contained I do not know, and soon it became impossible to watch, for the waves rose higher; the salt water was in my eyes, and was pouring constantly over my head and face. I was drenched to the skin, in spite of the supposedly waterproof coat that I wore. The chief’s assistant had given up paddling and was vigorously bailing the boat with a large gourd, or calabash. The chief alone paddled. I had been in the boats of other Pacific islanders; these had been much more skilfully managed. I soon realized that in seamanship the Formosan aborigines could not compare with the Hawaians, the Filipinos, or with most of the peoples of the South Seas; perhaps for one reason, because their canoes carry no outrigger. Or is this effect, rather than cause? Is it because of their lack of seamanship at the present time that they venture into the waves in outriggerless canoes? At any rate, whatever they lack in skill in the navigation of sea-craft, the Ami at least are not lacking in personal bravery, or in a sense of responsibility. When the canoe was swamped by the waves--as, soon after leaving the ship, I realized must inevitably be the case--the chief motioned me to get on his back, and when I had done so, began to swim for shore. He did this quite coolly, almost as if it were a matter of course, although he had never before seen a white woman; apparently regarding the whole affair from the Oriental, “it is ordered,” point of view. The other man in the boat seemed for a moment to be more at a loss, but at an order from the chief he dropped the now useless paddle, which for some reason (or none) he still held, and rescued my little travelling-bag, first taking the handle between his teeth, then, in spite of the waves, managing in a rather dexterous fashion--by means of the strip of homespun hemp-cloth which he had been wearing as a loin-cloth--to lash it to his shoulders, swimming with legs and one arm as he did so.