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. There is a notice of the poison in De Bry, in Sir T. Herbert (whencesoever he borrowed it), and in somewhat later authors about the middle of the 17th century. In March 1666 the subject came before the young Royal Society, and among a long list of subjects for inquiry in the East occur two questions pertaining to this matter.
The illustrious Rumphius in his Herbarium Amboinense goes into a good deal of detail on the subject, but the tree does not grow in Amboyna where he wrote, and his account thus contains some ill-founded statements, which afterwards lent themselves to the fabulous history of which we shall have to speak presently. Rumphius however procured from Macassar specimens of the plant, and it was he who first gave the native name (Ipo, the Macassar form) and assigned a scientific name, Arbor toxicaria.[[274]] Passing over with simple mention the notices in the appendix to John Ray's Hist. Plantarum, and in Valentijn (from both of which extracts will be found below), we come to the curious compound of the loose statements of former writers magnified, of the popular stories current among Europeans in the Dutch colonies, and of pure romantic invention, which first appeared in 1783, in the London Magazine. The professed author of this account was one Foersch, who had served as a junior surgeon in the Dutch East Indies.[[275]] This person describes the tree, called bohon-upas, as situated "about 27 leagues[[276]] 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; they were protected by special arrangements, yet not more than 1 in 10 of them survived the adventure. Foersch also describes executions by means of the Upas poison, which he says he witnessed at Sura Karta in February 1776.
The whole paper is a very clever piece of sensational romance, and has impressed itself indelibly, it would seem, on the English language; for to it is undoubtedly due the adoption of that standing metaphor to which we have alluded at the beginning of this article. 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. 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 extraordinary éclat produced by the Foerschian fables led to the appointment of a committee of the Batavian Society to investigate the true facts, whose report was published in 1789. This we have not yet been able to see, for the report is not contained in the regular series of the Transactions of that Society; nor have we found a refutation of the fables by M. Charles Coquebert referred to by Leschenault in the paper which we are about to mention. The poison tree was observed in Java by Deschamps, naturalist with the expedition of D'Entrecasteaux, and is the subject of a notice by him in the Annales de Voyages, vol. i., which goes into little detail, but appears to be correct as far as it goes, except in the statement that the Anchar was confined to Eastern Java. But the first thorough identification of the plant, and scientific account of the facts was that of M. Leschenault de la Tour. This French savant, when about to join a voyage of discovery to the South Seas, was recommended by Jussieu to take up the investigation of the Upas. 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. 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. On another occasion Leschenault, having had a tree of 4 feet girth cut down, walked among its broken branches, and had face and hands besprinkled with the gum-resin, yet neither did he suffer; he adds, however, that he had washed immediately after. Lizards and insects were numerous on the trunk, and birds perched upon the branches. M. Leschenault gives details of the preparation of the poison as practised by the natives, and also particulars of its action, on which experiment was made in Paris with the material which he brought to Europe. He gave it the scientific name by which it continues to be known, viz. Antiaris toxicaria (N.O. Artocarpeae).[[277]]
M. Leschenault also drew the attention of Dr. Horsfield, who had been engaged in the botanical exploration of Java some years before the British occupation, and continued it during that period, to the subject of the Upas, and he published a paper on it in the Batavian Transactions for 1813 (vol. vii.). His account seems entirely in accordance with that of Leschenault, but is more detailed and complete, with the result of numerous observations and experiments of his own. He saw the Antiaris first in the Province of Poegar, on his way to Banyuwangi. In Blambangan (eastern extremity of Java) he visited four or five trees; he afterwards found a very tall specimen growing at Passaruwang, on the borders of Malang, and again several young trees in the forests of Japāra, and one near Onārang. In all these cases, scattered over the length of Java, the people knew the tree as anchar.
Full articles on the subject are to be found (by Mr. J. J. Bennet) in Horsfield's Plantae Javanicae Rariores, 1838-52, pp. 52 seqq., together with a figure of a flowering branch pl. xiii.; and in Blume's Rumphia (Brussels, 1836), pp. 46 seqq., and pls. xxii., xxiii.; to both of which works we have been much indebted for guidance. 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. The stem throws out 'wings' or buttresses (see Horsfield in the Bat. Trans., and Blume's Pl.) like many of the forest trees of Further India. Blume refers, in connection with the origin of the prevalent fables, to the real existence of exhalations of carbonic acid gas in the volcanic tracts of Java, dangerous to animal life and producing sterility around, alluding particularly to a paper by M. Loudoun (a Dutch official of Scotch descent), in the Edinburgh New Phil. Journal for 1832, p. 102, containing a formidable description of the Guwo Upas or Poison Valley on the frontier of the Pekalongan and Banyumas provinces. We may observe, however, that, if we remember rightly, the exaggerations of Mr. Loudoun have been exposed and ridiculed by Dr. Junghuhn, the author of "Java." And if the Foersch legend be compared with some of the particulars alleged by several of the older writers, e.g. Camell (in Ray), Valentijn, Spielman, Kaempfer, and Rumphius, it will be seen that the basis for a great part of that putida commentatio, as Blume calls it, is to be found in them.
George Colman the Younger founded on the Foerschian Upas-myth, a kind of melodrama, called the Law of Java, first acted at Covent Garden May 11, 1822. We give some quotations below.[[278]]
Lindley, in his Vegetable Kingdom, in a short notice of Antiaris toxicaria, says that, though the accounts are greatly exaggerated, yet the facts are notable enough. He says cloth made from the tough fibre is so acrid as to verify the Shirt of Nessus. My friend Gen. Maclagan, noticing Lindley's remark to me, adds: "Do you remember in our High School days (at Edinburgh) a grand Diorama called The Upas Tree? It showed a large wild valley, with a single tree in the middle, and illustrated the safety of approach on the windward side, and the desolation it dealt on the other."