Chapter 2430: Sonia (VII)

Sonia studied the paintings with great interest, placing them one by one on the easel and browsing carefully, occasionally letting out sounds of surprise or delight.

Although Hualien was located on Taiwan proper, it was surrounded by mountains on three sides. Only the side facing the East China Sea could be accessed by ship. Not just Europeans—even among Taiwan's indigenous peoples, very few had ever set foot there.

This was the place with the most abundant heat and rainfall in all Taiwan. Animal and plant resources were very rich. One could imagine the expedition must have returned fully loaded.

This batch of natural history illustrations was mostly of animals and plants whose specimens were collected in Hualien, as well as terrain, topography, and vegetation landscapes.

Sonia looked at the drawings while reading the corresponding explanation booklet. There wasn't much new in the plants—most were specimens she had already collected in her other expeditions. But the animal specimen collection had quite a few new gains.

She flipped through randomly. The animal pictures drawn numbered in the dozens: sika deer, Formosan macaque, Reeves's muntjac, Formosan serow, Formosan black bear, sambar deer; among birds were grey-faced buzzards, Chinese sparrowhawks, black-faced spoonbills, Mikado pheasants, Swinhoe's pheasants, Taiwan blue magpies, Taiwan barbets; as well as Papilio hermosanus butterflies, Formosan landlocked salmon, green sea turtles, Taipei tree frogs, Formosan salamanders, and more.

Among these, the Formosan serow, Formosan black bear, and some birds were all specimens collected by the expedition for the first time. Previously, Sonia had only seen simple form drawings of these animals in the Taiwan Fauna compiled by the Grand Library.

"Wonderful—the Formosan black bear really does exist." Sonia admired Valentina's rendering of the Formosan black bear while murmuring to herself. "Is the bearskin well-preserved?"

"It's been tanned."

"What? Tanned?" Sonia was greatly startled. Making taxidermy specimens essentially meant using stuffing materials to support animal skins, restoring their original form. Flayed skins couldn't be tanned. Mostly, raw skins were preserved by applying toxic preservative compounds containing arsenic.

"Teacher Cui said it's fine. He used a special method. It won't affect subsequent preparation."

Since a Senator said there was no problem, Sonia was reassured—the Australians had given her too many surprises. This was just one more.

While viewing, Sonia asked questions and raised many survey-related queries. Valentina had to remind her that she hadn't been to Hualien—these were all drawn based on "glass paintings."

The so-called "glass paintings" were actually digital photographs. Printing photographs was too technically difficult for the Senate. Equipment and consumables couldn't be replenished. So materials shot with digital imaging equipment in this timeline were all stored digitally on various magnetic storage media. For display, they mostly used tablets, HDTVs, and similar playback devices. Since these devices mostly had LCD screens, naturalized citizens who had contact with them naturally called them "glass paintings."

Unlike the relatively widespread movies, very few naturalized citizens could access "glass paintings"—limited to a small number of specialized technical personnel. Sonia and Valentina, working at the Natural History Museum, had naturally seen them.

"Glass paintings" had very high image and color fidelity and could also record moving images. Recording animals and plants was very convenient, so initially Sonia didn't understand why Senators had such great interest in "natural history illustration." Until Lin Hanlong once personally admitted that the Senate still had no way to convert the content in "glass paintings" to another medium.

"But those pictorials..." Sonia thought of the "pictorials" Lin Hanlong had secretly brought home that had made her blush furiously.

"Right, right, actually we have this technology, but we don't have the materials." Lin Hanlong roughly explained the raw materials needed for printing photographs.

"...For now, we only have the capability to print simple black-and-white photos, which not only lack color but also have very limited resolution."

Sonia didn't ask further why in "Australia" they had this capability but in Lingao they didn't. She had learned her lesson—she wouldn't get to the bottom of things anymore.

"When will you be able to rebuild this technology?"

"This requires many people's efforts and involves many disciplines. It'll probably take several years," Lin Hanlong said. "Actually, even with such technology, scientific illustration is still very useful. Sometimes paintings can show details better than photographs."

"If only I could go there myself, that would be even better." Sonia sighed. "What a pity. Look how beautiful this scenery is!"

She was looking at a colored natural history illustration of topography—although it was scientific illustration, it actually looked no different from a landscape painting.

"Very beautiful, but there are many savages there. The expedition was even attacked," the Italian girl said. "I heard they specifically cut off people's heads!"

Taiwan's indigenous people's headhunting practice was of course something Sonia knew. When she went to survey southern Taiwan, she had visited indigenous villages with poles full of human heads and had even obtained a headhunted skull through local Han Chinese peddlers—one that had been dried for many years. That skull was currently in a wooden box in the Natural History Museum.

"With armed guards protecting us, what's there to fear?" Sonia flipped through the topographical landscapes one by one. These topographical paintings reflected scenery in the Hualien-Taitung longitudinal valley. The survey was conducted during autumn. Under the cold front's attack, the green mountains on both sides of the valley had turned fiery red, reflecting the morning sun, like flames and brocade, exceptionally dazzling.

She quickly distinguished that in the mountain vegetation topography at 500 meters elevation, large amounts of deciduous broadleaf forest were distributed. Among them, green maple and sweet gum were the main red-leaf trees. Besides these, there were also Taiwan zelkova, Taiwan sassafras, Chinese pistache, and stinky cedar trees. These trees' leaves, in the late autumn and winter cold, displayed transparent red, dark red, orange-red, and other shades of red.

"Really beautiful! You painted it well too!" Sonia said sincerely. "I could never paint something like this."

"It's nothing," Valentina pretended not to care, but was very pleased inside. "The scenery is indeed very beautiful. It's a pity it's a barbarous place! If only there were no savages and malaria."

"Savages and malaria are no match for the Senate." As Sonia spoke, she was attracted by the next group of paintings. This group depicted scenery on mountain foothills. The scenery also included an indigenous village. She looked at the caption: Eastern foothills of Beinan Main Peak in Taiwan's Central Mountain Range. Alluvial fan of Red Leaf Creek. The fan surface of the alluvial fan had been cut due to water flow and geological movement, forming river terraces of uneven elevation, resembling valley terrain. The surrounding hills and mountains were covered with green maples and verdant bamboo. Green water flowed like a ribbon around the emerald mountains—a charming scene.

After viewing all the paintings, Sonia placed the heavy album on the materials shelf—next she needed to write relevant natural history descriptions for the album. But this work wasn't urgent; it would have to wait its turn.

"Have all the collected animals been delivered?"

"They've all been delivered—smelly!" She made a nose-pinching gesture. "The stench of rotten meat. I doubt you can still use them for specimens."

"All rotten?"

"Those skins are still okay. The whole animals I didn't look at much—smelly!"

"Where is everything now?"

"In the basement, preserved with ice blocks."

"We'll talk about it tomorrow." Sonia looked at her schedule. "Tomorrow I'll take my apprentices to check the situation."

"As you wish. Anyway, I don't want to go again... After you finish making the specimens, I'll go paint." Valentina didn't have much interest in natural history. She painted and worked only because of her master's orders—she didn't care about being a "dedicated maid" at home. After all, in Lingao, there were too many things to enjoy, and they were too wonderful. So much better than the thatched huts she lived in back in Italy.

"Alright, I'll call you when I need you." Sonia said helplessly. Actually, she very much hoped the Italian girl could accompany her by her side. First, they could chat; second, some drawing work was better done on the spot.

"Then I'll go first—there are still many paintings not yet done." Valentina stretched. "If only one could have a little house in such a beautiful place—of course, this would have to wait for the Australians to conquer the area."

Having said this, she remembered something and took out a leather notebook from her crossbody bag.

"This is what Chief Cui asked me to give you. It's the Hualien expedition notes. He said you would definitely be interested."

"Wonderful!" Sonia became excited, immediately taking it. "Please convey to him: I'm extremely grateful for his kindness!"

After seeing off Valentina, Sonia took out an English-Chinese Dictionary compiled by the Grand Library from her drawer and eagerly opened the notebook. She already had some Chinese reading ability and could understand relatively simple articles. But when reading lengthy essays, she still needed a dictionary to understand the complete meaning.

"...The Taitung Longitudinal Valley is located in eastern Taiwan, between the Central Mountain Range and the Coastal Mountain Range. Running from Hualien in the north to Taitung in the south, it's also called the Hualien-Taitung Longitudinal Valley. It's 180 kilometers long north to south, 2-7 kilometers wide east to west, with an area of about 1,000 square kilometers, at elevations of 50-250 meters. Among these, the northern and southern ends of the valley each have plains of about 80 square kilometers—the Hualien Plain and the Taitung Delta Plain. The east coast has an important port—Hualien Port, located on the east side of the Hualien Plain at 121.17° East longitude, 23.08° North latitude. It's an important transportation route for the entire Taitung Longitudinal Valley, and also the only transportation route for external contact.

"The Taitung Longitudinal Valley is a fault valley, with steep high mountains on both sides, a long and narrow plain, in a belt shape. Due to the influence of sand and mud discharged from the mountains on both sides, it's also called a 'flood plain.' Its geological origin is that the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan and the western region belonging to the Eurasian Plate and the Coastal Mountain Range and its eastern region belonging to the Pacific Plate collided 10 million years ago, forming it. Afterward, rivers on both sides of the valley continuously eroded and silted, forming today's longitudinal valley plain. Although the plain area is under 1,000 square kilometers, in this mountainous eastern region, it's already rare. Like a jade ribbon floating between the Central Mountain Range and the Coastal Mountain Range, it has become Taiwan's eastern region's most fertile area."

(End of Chapter)