Upas

“ The Upas grows about seven leagues from Batavia, in a plain surrounded by rocky mountains, the whole of which plain, containing a circle of ten or twelve miles round the tree, is totally barren. Nothing that breathes or vegetates can live within its influence. The bird that flies over it drops down dead. The beast that wanders into it expires. ”

“ This upas valley is about half a mile in circumference, and the vapor that escapes through the cracks and fissures is fatal to every living thing. Here, indeed, are to be seen the bones of animals and birds, and even the skeletons of human beings who were unfortunate enough to enter and were overpowered by the deadly vapor. And now," added Miss Harson, "I have given you this account to make you understand that the famous upas valley of Java is not a valley of upas trees, but one of poisonous vapors."
"And the deadly upas," said Malcolm, "is not deadly, after all! ”

“ The natives were willing to conduct their visitors to a hill that overlooked this valley at a safe distance. When they arrived at this hill, there, sure enough, was the valley, Upas trees, dead grass, bones, and all, just as the savages had described it. This settled the matter for a great many years in regard to the death dealing Upas tree. Other travelers to Java, rode up this hill, looked at the Valley of Death, shuddered, and rode down again. ”

“ Farther on, there frowned a grove of blended banian boughs, thick-ranked manchineels, and many a upas; their summits gilded by the sun; but below, deep shadows, darkening night-shade ferns, and mandrakes. ”

“ These trees, "so wither'd and so wild in their attire," generally appear under the shelter of other taller trees; have half their branches dead, the part still in foliage drooping like the willow, the leaf being very small. It is an Acacia (A. VARIANS) , and I was informed by Yuranigh that it is the Upas of Australia; the natives call it "Goobang," and use a bough of it to poison the fish in waterholes. ”

“ The neighbourhood of the tree is unhealthy, not on account of anything in the tree itself, but because it grows in the hot and humid valleys of Java, rank with [Pg 185] malaria and fever. A Dutch physician, named Foersch, published in 1783 a narrative of his visit to the island, and amongst his wild statements we find that where the upas grows “not a tree or blade of grass is to be found in the valley or the surrounding mountains, not a bird, beast, reptile, or living thing lives in its neighbourhood.” ”

“ Similar phenomena, but on a grander scale, are presented by the extinct crater in the Island of Java called "Guevo Upas," the Poison-Valley. It is a level about half a mile in circumference, surrounded by precipitous rocks. From various parts of its soil carbonic acid gas is discharged in such quantities as to prove fatal to any animal venturing nigh. The ground is consequently strown with numerous skeletons. ”

“ In heathen days the Upa-upa was the distinguishing dance of an atrocious sect called the Areois—religious fanatics and libertines of the vilest order, who were held in reverent awe by the people, and allowed every sort of privilege. They travelled from village to village in very large companies, sometimes filling from fifty to eighty canoes. ”

“ He remarks upon the extent to which they are a truly unsophisticated population, and also upon the extent to which they differ from the Indians lower down, i.e., between Barra and Para, the junction of the Rio Negro and Amazons, and the mouth of that latter river. His description (founded on personal observation) is one of the best we have. I quote it freely:—“All the tribes of the Uaupés,” he writes, “construct their dwellings after one plan, which is peculiar to them. Their houses are the abode of numerous families, sometimes of a whole tribe. ”

“ We ran along Upolu for a couple of hours, the scenery enchanting; abrupt mountains, not so high as in Tahiti or Hawaii, nor so strangely awful as the Marquesan highlands, but with a great beauty of outline and colour, the thick jungle looking from the deck of the ship like soft green moss. Through the glass I could see a high, narrow waterfall drop into the sea. Breaths of the land breeze began to come out to us, intoxicating with [29] the odours of the earth, of growing trees, sweet flowers and fruits, and dominating all, the clean, wholesome smell of breadfruit baking in hot stones. ”

“ All the fish which are carried down by the violence of the current are here caught, and their numbers are often so great as to supply a whole village with food. At many of the falls on the Uaupés, they make these geraús, which require the united exertions of the inhabitants to construct them; huge timbers having to be planted in every crevice of the rocks, to withstand the strength of the torrent of water brought down by the winter’s floods. ”

“ Two roads went past the house: one a wagon road, by which a person could travel up the river to Riesenburg castle, and thence to Red Hura; the other led to the mill and along the river to the nearest village, a short hour's distance. That river is the wild Upa, that flows from the Riesenburg mountains, plunging over rocks and rapids, and wandering about through narrow valleys, till it reaches the level plain, where without any further hindrance it flows into the Elbe.
Its banks are always green, in places precipitous, and often covered with dense shrubbery. ”

“ Higher up, on the same river, is another group of rather less height. On the Uaupés are numerous hills, some conical, others dome-shaped, but all keeping the same character of abrupt elevations, quite independent of the general profile of the country. About the falls of the river Uaupés there are small hills of granite, broken about in the greatest confusion. Great chasms or bowls occur, and slender pillars of rock rise up like dead trunks out of the surrounding forest. Up the river Isanna, the Tunuhy mountains are a similar isolated group. ”

“ The island of Upolu in particular is wooded from its summit to the water's edge, where in some places the roots of the trees are washed by the surf, while in many places clumps of mangrove trees spread out into the lagoon. The forests are dense and more sombre even than those of Brazil. The lofty trees shoot up to a great height before sending out branches. At their feet grow ferns of many sorts, while climbing vines and other creepers mantle their trunks and sometimes even their tops. ”

“ The Yampa Utes, Piedes, Piutes, Elk Mountain Utes, and She-be-rechers live in the eastern and southern parts of the Territory. They number, as nearly as can be estimated, 5200; do not cultivate the soil, but subsist by hunting and fishing, and at times by depredating in a small way upon the white settlers. They are warlike and migratory in their habits, carrying on a petty warfare pretty much all the time with the southern Indians. These bands of Utes have no treaties with the United States: they receive no annuities, and but very little assistance from the Government. ”

“ When school is over, Upa and Auwae go home through the woods so that they can throw stones in a certain waterfall. They have no fear that snakes will suddenly take them by surprise, for there is not a single one in the whole island. Neither do they hear frogs croaking beside a shady pool, for neither frogs nor toads have ever hopped upon Hawaiian soil.
Wherever they come to an open space beneath the trees, they play ball. Upa made his own ball out of leaves which he packed closely together, and Auwae bound it with sweet-smelling grasses when he had pressed it into shape. ”

“ Long, long while afterwards, yet not long enough that it should escape the memory and the records of our holy men, some other of our children, hearing of the power of the Comanches, of their wealth, of their beautiful country, determined also to leave us and spread to the south. These are the Apaches. From the top of the big mountains, always covered with snow, they look towards the bed of the sun. They see the green grass of the prairie below them, and afar the blue salt-water. ”

“ And so he neared the canyon of the Grand Falls without the smallest perturbation.
A mere speck in the immensity of its surrounding the kyak glided on. Here it rocked on a ruffled surface, there it passed, perfectly poised, a ghostly shadow upon a smooth mirror-like surface. The dip of the man’s paddle was precise and rhythmic. Every ounce of strength was in every stroke, and every stroke yielded its full of propulsion. For Usak was a master of river craft, and understood the needs of the journey that still lay ahead of him. ”

“ North as well as South, in the native names of waters. In South America are several Ubas, ancient appellations of waters. California has two rivers, the prehistoric Indian names, written Yuba. There are scores of "oobas" and "ubas" in the ancient names of waters of the continent both North and South. And what is a more startling feature of the prehistoric speech of the New World is the fact that this same word, or the sounds heard in the writing "uba" or "yuba," is found in the prehistoric water nomenclature of various peoples of the Old World. ”

“ The history of the outbreak on the White River Ute Reservation in Western Colorado is given at length in the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The Utes are one of the very few tribes of Indians who still find on and around their reservations game enough to enable them to live on hunting or to make hunting a profitable business. This is one of the reasons why they are less inclined to engage in occupations which require real work. ”

“ In the wet season, it overflows the country far and wide, sometimes to a breadth of 20 m., for long distances, and for 400 m. up, as far as Santa Isabella, is a succession of lagoons, full of long islands and intricate channels, and the slope of the country is so gentle that the river has almost no current. But just before reaching the Uaupes there is a long series of reefs, over which it violently flows in cataracts, rapids and whirlpools. ”

“ We were amused to see them swimming about, sometimes on their backs, using their long oars, sometimes floating, but always incessantly agitating the water with their ten pairs of breathing legs; and the ladies, gathered round the jar, were hugely elated at the idea of animals getting rid altogether of the sterner sex—clearly a useless incumbrance in the scheme of things!
The fact that no male Apus has yet been found is not without precedent. ”

“ The morning of the third day each tribe marched down at about the usual hour and resumed their positions in the line of battle, and that morning they fought more cautiously than before, until about ten o'clock, when the Utes made their first big charge on the Comanches, and they had a hard fight, which resulted in the death of many Indians, and the Utes retreated with considerably the worst of it. ”

“ A few years ago, the Utes sold their lands to the United States government, and the various bands were removed to a reservation.
Among the many legends of the Utes, that accounting for the origin of the hot springs at the mouth of the cañon of the Rio las Gallinas (near Las Vegas, N.M.) is one of the most remarkable. It was related to one of the authors of this volume thirty-two years ago, by an aged warrior, while the party of Indians and white men who had been hunting for black-tail deer in the mountains were sitting around their camp-fire at night. ”

“ Just as we were leaving the hut I had a look at the utu —a fish I had never before seen. It was about three feet in length, and only for its head (which was coarse and clumsy) much like a heavy salmon. The back was covered with light green scales, the sides and belly a pure silver, and the fins and tail tipped with yellow. It weighed about 20 lbs., and presented a very handsome appearance.
The fishing-ground to which we were now paddling was not half a mile from the islets, and lay between them and the outer reef which formed its northern boundary. ”

“ These upland stretches, consequently, are among the most desolate spots to be found in our islands. I have walked over them myself within recent years and met not a human soul, nor beast of man's taming. Ravens, curlews, peewits, a lagging fox or limping hare; such, with the unsensed Spirits of the Earth, will be your company. In particular I traversed (in 1902) the great upland called Limmer Fell, and saw the tarn—Silent Water—and the trees called The Seven Sisters. They are silver birches of remarkable size and beauty. One of them is fallen. ”

“ Herero woman, fellow traveler Let’s play extreme? Early in the morning, I rolled up the "bed" and, leaving things in the branches of a tree, hurried to the waterfall, whose name in the language of the Herero tribe means "falling water". Epupa is a whole gallery of waterfalls. Twenty meters from the place of my overnight stay is main and largest. ”

“ The natives of Uap, in number from five to six thousand, are of that perplexing type known generally as Micronesian, which covers a multitude of conjectures. The natives of each island have certain characteristics of form and features which make relationship to natives of other islands or groups of islands a possibility; but, on the other hand, there are such differences in language, in customs, in manner of living, that it is well-nigh impossible to state, with any degree of certainty, what or whence is the parent stock or predominant race. ”

“ Two miles off the lee end of Upolu is the low-lying island of Manono, which is, however, enclosed in the Upolu barrier reef. It is only about three miles in circumference, exceedingly fertile, and is the most important place in the group, owing to the political influence wielded by the chiefly families who have [pg 239] always made it their home. A mile from Manono, and in the centre of the deep strait separating Upolu from Savaii, is a curiously picturesque spot, an island named Apolima. ”