3-077-926 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in Formosa: flight of savage chief and his tribe, 1890. 'We have published some of Mr. E. H. Grimani's sketches and notes of his sojourn at Takow, on the south-west shore of the island of Formosa, and of his excursion, with two friends, to Bankimsing, a native village almost beyond the pale of Chinese civilisation, on the verge of the central highlands, where tribes of savage mountaineers have recently asserted their independence by sanguinary inroads on the peaceable dwellers in the plains below...The long ride on horseback, after crossing the plains...was attended with some difficulties...every savage tribe being on the alert to see what these foreigners meant by approaching their country without invitation or permission. We are glad to know that no great harm came of it; and Mr. Grimani, with his pencil and sketchbook, though his own intentions were benevolent, seems to have frightened the wild folk more than they could frighten him. A whole tribe, led by their chief, not being armed with their spears or other primitive weapons, fairly ran away into the forest at sight of the three European horsemen followed by a troop of baggage coolies'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.