This book, let me say at once, does not pretend to be a record of thrilling adventures or of hairbreadth escapes; nor does it pretend to be a standard work on Formosa. It is the work of a passer-by, who does not profess to have an intimate and exhaustive knowledge of the country such as can be attained only after many years' residence; it is an account of a journey through a beautiful and fascinating, but little-known, island to which foreigners are not usually encouraged to go, an introduction to its romantic history, to its rich natural resources, and to the unhappy story of the fortunes of the brown people who dwell upon its jungle hills.
Thanks to the courtesy of the Government of Formosa I was privileged, during my visit to the island, to look through many windows which ordinarily would have been closed to the traveller, and by the light of my knowledge of other Eastern colonies I have tried to show how in thirty years the Japanese have succeeded, marvellously succeeded, in developing economically what was, when they first took possession of it, little more than a wilderness; and to show too how they have failed, for all their good intentions, in their attempt to settle and administer the native tribes, made intractable by centuries of tyranny and oppression.
