(Dr. Terrien de Lacouperie, Formosa Notes; Hertford, 1887, p. 39.)

There are other evidences of importance, which show that the Chinese were acquainted with the dark-skinned occupiers of Formosa as originated from the Philippine Archipelago. The Yang tchou wen Kao (v. Geo. Kleinwachter, The History of Formosa under the Chinese, p. 345) says that “the island of Tai-wan (or Formosa), which was formerly called Ki-lung, was originally a part of the Liu-Kiu state, which was founded by some descendants of the Ha-la. The author does not say what the Ha-la are, assuming that his readers are acquainted with that name, so that we must look elsewhere for the wanted explanations. I find it in the Miao Man hoh tchi (k. III, ff. 6–7), “A Description of the Miao and Man Tribes,” by Tsao Shu-K’iao of Shanghai. The entry about that people is amongst those of the South. They are described as “dark, with deep-set eyes,” a peculiarity which the Chinese stated to be that of the kun-lun men, as we have seen above. The author of the Miao Man hoh tchi says also that the Hala do not know the practice of chewing betel and he proceeds with some details on their clothes and customs in so far as they are peculiar to themselves, but they are unimportant. Now these Ha-la of the Chinese are simply the Gala, commonly Ta-gala, with the usual Ta1 prefix of the Philippine Islands and the statements agree entirely with the inferences of ethnologists deduced from travellers’ reports as to the parentship of several tribes of aborigines of Formosa with the Tagal population of the Philippines.

The Chinese ethnographical notices of the Sung Dynasty on the Liu Kiu islands, including as it does all the islands from Japan to the Philippines, states that next to Liu-Kiu lies the country of the P’i-she-ye2 in which we must I think recognize the Bisayas, the most diffused population of the Philippines, and next to the Tagalas in importance.

They made a raid on the coasts of Fuhkien at Tsiuen-tchou during the period A. D. 1174–1189 and caused a great deal of havoc. They are described as naked savages with large eyes, greatly covetous of iron in any shape, using bamboo rafts and a sort of javelin attached by a long string and which they throw on their enemy (cf. Ma Tuanlin, Wen hien t’ung K’ao; d’Hervey de St. Denis, Ethnographie de Matouanlin, Vol. 1, p. 425). These people travelling on rafts could not have come from afar, and therefore may be supposed to have come over to the Chinese coast from Formosa. In which probable case, this ought to have resulted from an emigration of them to the great island.