To guard their beauties from the sunny ray;
Or sweating slaves support the shady load
When Eastern monarchs show their state abroad;
Britain in winter only knows its aid
To guard from chilly showers the walking maid."
Gay, Trivia, i.
1850.—Advertisement posted at the door of one of the Sections of the British Association meeting at Edinburgh.
"The gentleman, who carried away a brown silk umbrella from the —— Section yesterday, may have the cover belonging to it, which is of no further use to the Owner, by applying to the Porter at the Royal Hotel."—(From Personal Recollection.)—It is a curious parallel to the advertisement above from the Female Tatler.
UPAS, s. This word is now, like [Juggernaut], chiefly used in English as a customary metaphor, and to indicate some institution that the speaker wishes to condemn in a compendious manner. 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. 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. [According to Mr. Scott "the Malay name for the 'poison-tree,' or any poison-tree, is pōhun ūpas, pūhun ūpas, represented in English by bohon-upas. The names of two poison-trees, the Javanese anchar (Malay also anchar) and chetik, appear occasionally in English books ... The Sundanese name for the poison tree is bulo ongko.">[ It was the poison commonly used by the natives of Celebes and other islands for poisoning the small bamboo darts which they used (and in some islands still use) to shoot from the blow-tube (see [SUMPITAN], [SARBATANE]).
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.