Henry Yule

“ Malefactors, who, for their crimes, are sentenced to die, are the only persons to fetch the poison; and this is the only chance they have of saving their lives.... They are then provided with a silver or tortoise-shell box, in which they are to put the poisonous gum, and are properly instructed how to proceed, while they are upon their dangerous expedition. Among other particulars, they are always told to attend to the direction of the winds; as they are to go towards the tree before the wind, so that the effluvia from the tree are always blown from them.... ”

“ There are several trees in the Malay Islands producing deadly poisons, but the particular tree to which such stories were attached is one which has in the last century been described under the name of Antiaris toxicaria, from the name given to the poison by the Javanese proper, viz. Antjar, or Anchar (the name of the tree all over Java) , whilst it is known to the Malays and people of Western Java as Upas, and in Celebes and the Philippine Islands as Ipo or Hipo. ”

“ The word upas is Javanese for poison; [Mr. Scott writes: "The Malay word ūpas, means simply 'poison.' It is Javanese hupas, Sundanese upas, Balinese hupas, 'poison.' It commonly refers to vegetable poison, because such are more common. In the Lampong language upas means 'sickness.'"] It became familiar in Europe in connection with exaggerated and fabulous stories regarding the extraordinary and deadly character of a tree in Java, alleged to be so called. ”

“ The story of some deadly poison in these islands is very old, and we find it in the Travels of Friar Odoric, accompanied by the mention of the disgusting antidote which was believed to be efficacious, a genuine Malay belief, and told by a variety of later and independent writers, such as Nieuhof, Saar, Tavernier, Cleyer, and Kaempfer.
The subject of this poison came especially to the notice of the Dutch in connection with its use to poison the arrows just alluded to, and some interesting particulars are given on the subject by Bontius, from whom a quotation is given below, with others. ”

“ It is said that Darwin was warned of the worthlessness of the narrative, but was unwilling to rob his poem of so sensational an episode.
Nothing appears to be known of Foersch except that there was really a person of that name in the medical service in Java at the time indicated. In our article ANACONDA we have adduced some curious particulars of analogy between the Anaconda-myth and the Upas-myth, and intimated a suspicion that the same hand may have had to do with the spinning of both yarns. ”

“ The natives of the kingdom in question possess a singular art of shooting arrows by blowing through canes, and wounding with these, insomuch that if the skin be but slightly scratched the wounded die in a twinkling. ”

“ Blume gives a drawing, for the truth of which he vouches, of a tall specimen of the trees. These he describes as "vastas, arduas, et a ceteris segregatas,"—solitary and eminent, on account of their great longevity, (possibly on account of their being spared by the axe?) , but not for any such reason as the fables allege. There is no lack of adjoining vegetation; the spreading branches are clothed abundantly with parasitical plants, and numerous birds and squirrels frequent them. ”

“ It is quite inconsistent with the other two assigned.↑ Leschenault also gives the description of another and still more powerful poison, used in a similar way to that of the Antiaris, viz. the tieute, called sometimes Upas Raja, the plant producing which is a Strychnos, and a creeper. Though, as we have said, the name Upas is generic, and is applied to this, it is not the Upas of English metaphor, and we are not concerned with it here. Both kinds are produced and prepared in Java. The Ipo (a form of Upas) of Macassar is the Antiaris ”

“ This is the Malay name (nearly answering to 'Land's End,' from Ujung, 'point or promontory,' and tanah, 'land') of the extreme end of the Malay Peninsula terminating in what the maps call Pt. Romania. In Godinho de Eredia's Declaracam de Malaca the term is applied to the whole Peninsula, but owing to the interchangeable use of u, v, and of j, i, it appears there throughout as Viontana. The name is often applied by the Portuguese writers to the Kingdom of Johor, in which the Malay dynasty of Malacca established itself when expelled by Alboquerque in 1511 ”

“ On first enquiring at Batavia and Samarang, M. Leschenault heard only fables akin to Foersch's romance, and it was at Sura Karta that he first got genuine information, which eventually enabled him to describe the tree from actual examination.
The tree from which he took his specimens was more than 100 ft. in height, with a girth of 18 ft. at the base. A Javanese who climbed it to procure the flowers had to make cuts in the stem in order to mount. ”

“ But though the account just mentioned ... has been demonstrated to be an extravagant forgery, the existence of a tree in Java, from whose sap a poison is prepared, equal in fatality, when thrown into the circulation, to the strongest animal poisons hitherto known, is a fact."—Horsfield, in Batavian Trans. vol. vii. art. ”

“ This effect may, however, have been due not so much directly to the article in the London Magazine as to the adoption of the fable by the famous ancestor of a man still more famous, Erasmus Darwin, in his poem of the Loves of the Plants. In that work not only is the essence of Foersch's story embodied in the verse, but the story itself is quoted at length in the notes. ”

“ After ascending some 25 feet the man felt so ill that he had to come down, and for some days he continued to suffer from nausea, vomiting, and vertigo. But another man climbed to the top of the tree without suffering at all. ”

“ XVIième, p. 459.
1813.—"The literary and scientific world has in few instances been more grossly imposed upon than in the account of the Pohon Upas, published in Holland about the year 1780. The history and origin of this forgery still remains a mystery. Foersch, who put his name to the publication, certainly was ... a surgeon in the Dutch East India Company's service about the time.... I have been led to suppose that his literary abilities were as mean as his contempt for truth was consummate. ”

“ The professed author of this account was one Foersch, who had served as a junior surgeon in the Dutch East Indies. [2] This person describes the tree, called bohon-upas, as situated "about 27 leagues [3] from Batavia, 14 from Soura Karta, the seat of the Emperor, and between 18 and 20 leagues from Tinkjoe" (probably for Tjukjoe, i.e. Djokjo-Karta) , "the present residence of the Sultan of Java." Within a radius of 15 to 18 miles round the tree no human creature, no living thing could exist. Condemned malefactors were employed to fetch the poison ”

“ The Young Gentleman belonging to the Custom-house that for fear of rain borrowed the Umbrella at Will's Coffee-house in Cornhill of the Mistress, is hereby advertised that to be dry from head to foot in the like occasion he shall be welcome to the Maid's pattens."—The Female Tatler, Dec. ”

“ Ma egli hanno la tina piene di sterco d'uomo e una iscodella di sterco guarisce l'uomo da queste cotali ponture."—Storia di Frate Odorigo, from Palatina MS., in Cathay, &c., App., p. xlix. c. 1630.—"And (in Makasser) which is no lesse infernall, the men use long canes or truncks (cald Sempitans—see SUMPITAN) , out of which they can (and use it) blow a little pricking quill, which if it draw the lest drop of blood from any part of the body, it makes him (though the strongest man living) die immediately ”

“ Quelli uomini sono quasi tutti corsali, e quando vanno a battaglia portano ciascuno uno canna in mano, di lunghezza d'un braccio e pongono in capo de la canna uno ago di ferro atossiato in quel veleno, e sofiano nella canna e l'ago vola e percuotelo dove vogliono, e 'ncontinente quelli ch'è percosso muore. ”