species, standing on the middle of a naked plain, of a nature
so baneful that not only birds, beasts, and every is in g creature
which come within the circle of the atmosphere contaminated
by its poisonous effluvia, instantly perish, but so
deleterious as to wither up and destroy all other plants, and
to devour, like Saturn, its own offspring as they pullulate
from its roots. Such a monster in nature, with “ its thousand
“ tongues steeped in fell poison,” is almost too much for the
page of romance, or the wildest fiction of poetry. Yet the
relation was not wholly discredited. “ That which is
“ strange,” says Dr. Johnson, “ is delightful, and a pleasing
“ error is not willingly detected.” The magic pen of Dr.
Darwin, by celebrating the wonders of this wonderful tree
“ In sweet tetrandrian monogynian strains,”
made the error still more pleasing, and consecrated, as it
were, the fiction of the Upas.
As fabulous stories have sometimes, however, their origin
in truth, so that of the Upas may probably not be wholly
groundless, but admit of some explanation. In tropical climates,
plants possessing noxious qualities are very common.
Java is considered to abound with them. The first of this
kind that was discovered might probably have the name of
Upas conferred on it, which name, being afterwards adjunc-
tively applied to all other plants possessing the same qualities,
became the appellative for every poisonous tree. That
this was th e . common acceptation of the word Upas, I inferred
from its being connected with the trivial name of all
such plants as were either known, or supposed, to contain
poisonous qualities. Thus, for instance, the Dioscorea Dele-
teria was called the Ubi Upas, which may be translated the
poisonous potatoe. The seed of a tree bearing a papilionaceous
flower, and apparently a species of Sophora, was called the
Upas Bidjie, the poisonous seed. Thus, also, a triangularstemmed
Euphorbia, a species Of Solanufn, a Datura, and several
other plants of real of supposed noxious qualities, had all
of them the word Upas joined to their proper names. In this
sense, the Bohun or Boon Upas of Foersch would imply neither
more nor less than a poisonous tree, and not any particular
species of tree, much less an unconnected individual sui
generis, bearing the name of Upas.
I t is generally believed in Batavia, that both the Malays
and Javanese wear crisses or daggers that have been steeped
in vegetable poison. So was it generally believed in Athens,
two thousand years ago, that Demosthenes carried poison
about with him, lodged under the gem of his ring. The one
appears to be just as probable-as the other; but, whether
true or false, the Dutch are not less credulous than the
Athenians were in this respect. We were told by the old
governor of Bantam fort, that when the king of that district
is desirous of proving the virtues of a new cris, he calls
before him one of his slaves, and pricks his arm with its
point. The value of the instrument is estimated according to
the length of time which elapses before the poison begins to
operate and the rapidity with which the victim is dispatched,
which is stated to take place sometimes in the course of a
few minutes. I have read somewhere (I think in Tavernier)
of an instance of this kind, which, if a fact,, evinces a very
c c