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National Geographic : 1920 Mar
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FORMOSA THE BEAUTIFUL BY ALICE BALLANTINE KIRJASSOFF Illustrated with photographs by the official photographer of the Government of Taiwan and from the Chief of the Camphor Department cTLHA FORMOSA," beautiful isle. early Portuguese voyagers called the island now owned by Japan and known to them as Taiwan. The Portuguese name has clung to it in all European countries, and never was a more appropriate name given to an isle of the sea. If you care to confirm this in one of several pleasant ways. sail along the west coast of Formosa in a tek pai (or bamboo raft, see page 246) on a clear day, and you will witness a pageant of mountain scenery that will haunt the memory for many a day. Beyond the fertile plain, with its emer ald paddy-fields and its picturesque lit tle villages dotted here and there on the banks of meandering streams, foot hills with unending variations of con tour silhouette their tree-fringed sum mits against the paler screen of more distant mountains. Of these, sometimes five and sometimes even six parallel ranges are visible at once, each a separate ribbon of color, shading from the deepest sapphire to the palest azure and extend ing in an unbroken chain of beauty from north to south. On the east of the island you can see the highest coastal cliffs known, at some places rising abruptly to an elevation of about 6,ooo feet, and affording an im pregnable wall of defense to the wild aboriginal tribes living in the mountains back of them. AN ISLAND OF' AMAZING VARIETY OF VEGETATION Formosan scenery is unusual in its diversity of vegetation within such nar row confines-the greatest length of the island from north to south is about 264 miles and 80 miles is its greatest width. From the palms and tropical fruit-trees of the western plain it is only a short step to the slopes of the lower mountains, with their exuberant jungles of various growths-the bearded banyans, the grace ful tree-ferns, which in sheltered nooks attain the height of palms, and the ubiquitous bamboo grass. Here, among moss-strung trees, is found growing the beautiful butterfly orchid, while in exposed spaces, nestling among the rocks, rose-pink azaleas flaunt their gay blooms. A little higher are plateaus covered with camphor laurel. the largest tracts of these valuable trees in the world, while still higher grow the forests of coniferous trees - the giant benihi, similar to the redwoods of Cali fornia, the largest trees in the East and the second largest in the world; the val uable hinoki, or Japanese cypress, and the pine, cedar, and spruce of the New England States; and higher yet the craggy peaks of the tallest mountains, but sparsely covered with vegetation of any sort, where eagles build their nests, and which for the greater part of the year lie beneath a mantle of snow. "TIIE SECOND WETTEST PORT IN TIE WORLD" The usual approach to'the island is the port of Kelung, in the extreme north. It was here that the author of this paper landed after a four days' steamer journey from Kobe. The rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring the hill-crested har bor, and all looked gloomy except for one bright patch of sky, where the sun was struggling to come through. I remember reading in my old gram mar-school geography that Kelung is the second wettest port in the world, and I have no trouble in believing it. I have been there many times, and each time it has rained. Without showers. Kelung would wear an unrecognizable face, like a person without spectacles who was ac customed to wearing them. After disposing of the numerous por ters who escorted me from the steamer,
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