down to the sea, covered with waving
bamboo or with little water-covered rice-fields. It was all so
delightful that no wonder they cried,

"Illha Formosa! Illha Formosa!"

"Beautiful Isle! Beautiful Isle." Since that day the "Beautiful Isle,"
perhaps the most charming in all the world, has been called Formosa.

And, somehow, Mackay longed to see this "Beautiful Isle" before he
decided where he was going to preach the gospel. And so when the kind
friends at Swatow said, "Stay and work with us," he always answered,
"I must first see Formosa."

So, one day, he sailed away from the mainland toward the Beautiful
Isle. He landed at Takow in the south of the island, just about
Christmas-time. But Formosa was green, the weather was hot, and he could
scarcely believe that, at home in Oxford county, Ontario, they were
flying over the snow to the music of sleigh-bells. On New Year's day
he met a missionary of this south Formosa field, named Dr. Ritchie. He
belonged to the Presbyterian Church of England, which had a fine mission
there. For nearly a month Mackay visited with him and studied the
language.

And while he visited and worked there the missionaries told him of
the northern part of the island. No person was there to tell all those
crowded cities of Jesus Christ and His love. It would be lonely for him
there, it would be terribly hard work, but it would be a grand Thing
to lay the foundations, to be the first to tell those people the "good
news," the young missionary thought. And, one day, he looked up from the
Chinese book he was studying and said to Dr. Ritchie:

"I have decided to settle in north Formosa."

And Dr. Ritchie's quick answer was:

"God bless you, Mackay."

As soon as the decision was made, another missionary, Dr. Dickson, who
was with Mr. Ritchie, decided to go to north Formosa with the young man,
and show him over the ground. So, early in the month of March in the
year 1872, the three men set off by steamship to sail for Tamsui, a port
in north Formosa. They were two days making the voyage, and a tropical
storm pitched the small vessel hither and thither, so that they were
very much relieved when they sailed up to the mouth of the Tamsui river.

It was low tide and a bare sand-bar stretched across the mouth of the
harbor, so the anchor was dropped, and they waited until the tide should
cover the bar, and allow them to sail in.

This wait gave the travelers a fine opportunity to see the country.