"The operation of the two different poisons on the animal system is essentially different. The first seventeen experiments were made with the anchar. The rapidity of its effect depends in a great degree upon the size of the vessel wounded, and on the quantity of poison carried into the circulation. In the first experiment, it induced death in twenty-six minutes: in the second, which was made with the sap collected at Púgar, in thirteen minutes. The poison from different parts of the island has been found nearly equal in activity. The common train of symptoms is; a trembling and shivering of the extremities, restlessness, erection of the hair, discharges from the bowels, drooping and faintness, slight spasms and convulsions, hasty breathing, an increased flow of saliva, spasmodic contractions of the pectoral and abdominal muscles, retching, vomiting, excrementitious vomiting, frothy vomiting, great agony, laborious breathing, repeated convulsions, and death. The effects are nearly the same on quadrupeds, in whatever part of the body the wound is made. It sometimes acts with so much force, that not all the symptoms enumerated are observed. In these cases, after the premonitory symptoms (tremors, twitchings, faintness, an increased flow of saliva), the convulsions come on suddenly, and are quickly followed by death. The upas appears to affect quadrupeds with nearly equal force, proportionate in some degree to their size and disposition. To dogs it proved mortal in most experiments within an hour; a mouse died in ten minutes; a monkey in seven; a cat in fifteen; a buffalo, one of the largest quadrupeds of the island, died in two hours and ten minutes.
"If the simple or unprepared sap is mixed with the extract of tobacco, instead of the spices mentioned, it is rendered equally, perhaps more, active. Even the pure juice, unmixed and unprepared, appears to act with a force equal to that which has undergone the preparative process. Birds are very differently affected by this poison. Fowls have a peculiar capacity to resist its effects: a fowl died in twenty-four hours after the wound; others have recovered after being partially affected.
"The eighteenth and succeeding experiments were made with the poison prepared from the chetik. Its operation is far more violent and rapid than that of the anchar, and it affects the animal system in a different manner. While the anchar operates chiefly on the stomach, alimentary canal, the respiration and circulation, the chetik is determined to the brain and nervous system: a relative comparison of the appearances on dissection, demonstrates in a striking manner the peculiar operation of each. A general view of the effects of the chetik on quadrupeds is given in these experiments. After the previous symptoms of faintness, drowsiness, and slight convulsions, it acts by a sudden impulse, which like a violent apoplexy prostrates at once the whole nervous system. In two of these experiments this sudden effect took place in the sixth minute after the wound, in another in the seventh minute: the animals suddenly started, fell down head foremost, and continued in convulsions until death ensued. This poison affects fowls in a much more violent manner than that of the anchar. They are first affected by a heat and itching of the breast and wings, which they shew by violently pecking those parts; this is followed by a loose discharge from the bowels, when they are seized with tremors and fluttering of the wings, which having continued a short time, they fall down head foremost, and continue convulsed till death. In some instances, particularly young fowls, the poison acts with great rapidity; death has frequently occurred within the space of a minute after a puncture with a poisoned dart.
"Taken into the stomach of quadrupeds, the chetik acts as a most violent poison; but it requires about thrice the period to produce the same effect which a wound produces. But the stomach of fowls can resist its operation. Having mixed about double the quantity generally adhering to a dart with the food of a fowl, it consumed it without shewing any marks of indisposition. The poison of the anchar does by no means act as violently on quadrupeds as that of the chetik. I have given it to a dog: it produced at first nearly the same symptoms as a puncture; oppression of the head, twitchings, faintness, laborious respiration, violent contraction of the pectoral and abdominal muscles, &c. which continued nearly two hours; but after the complete evacuation of the stomach by vomiting, the animal gradually recovered.
"I have but little to add concerning the operation of the anchar on the human system. The only credible information on this subject is contained in the work of Rhumphius, who had an opportunity of personally observing the effect of the poisoned darts and arrows as they were used by the natives of Makasar, in their attack on Amboyna about the year 1650. They were also employed by the inhabitants of Celebes in their former wars with the Dutch. Speaking of their operation he says, 'the poison touching the warm blood, it is instantly carried through the whole body, so that it may be felt in all the veins, and causes an excessive burning, particularly in the head, which is followed by fainting and death.' This poison (according to the same author) possesses different degrees of virulence, according to its age and state of preservation. The most powerful is called upas raja, and its effects are considered as incurable; the other kinds are distributed among the soldiers on going to war. After having proved mortal to many of the Dutch soldiers in Amboyna and Makasar, they finally discovered an almost infallible remedy in the root of the radix toxicaria of Rhumphius, which, if timely applied, counteracted, by its violent emetic effect, the force of the upas. An intelligent Javan of Banyuwangi informed me, that a number of years ago an inhabitant of that district was wounded in a clandestine manner, by an arrow thrown from a blow-pipe, in the fore-arm, near the articulation of the elbow. In about fifteen minutes he became drowsy; after which he was seized with vomiting, became delirious, and in less than half an hour he died. From the experiments above related, we may form an analogous estimate of its probable effects on man." Batavian Transactions, vol. vii.
CHAPTER II.
Origin of the Natives—Javans compared with Maláyus and Búgis—Comparative Progress of the three Races—Foreign Influence—Persons of the Natives—Manners—Population—Inequality of it accounted for—Population Tables—Increase of Population—Foreign Settlers—Chinese—Búgis—Maláyus—Moors—Arabs—Slaves—Gradations of Rank among the Javans—Their Habitations, Dress, and Food.
The inhabitants of Java seem to owe their origin to the same stock, from which most of the islands lying to the south of the eastern Peninsula of Asia appear to have been first peopled. This stock is evidently Tartar, and has, by its numerous and wide-spreading branches, not only extended itself over the Indian Archipelago, but over the neighbouring Continent. "To judge from external appearance, that is to say, from shape, size, and feature," observes Dr. Francis Buchanan, in his Notices on the Birman Empire[34], "there is one very extensive nation that inhabits the east of Asia. It includes the eastern and western Tartars of the Chinese authors, the Calmucs, the Chinese, the Japanese, and other tribes inhabiting what is called the Peninsula of India beyond the Ganges, and the islands to the south and east of this, as far at least as New Guinea."—"This nation," adds the same author, "may be distinguished by a short, squat, robust, fleshy stature, and by features highly different from those of an European. The face is somewhat in shape of a lozenge, the forehead and chin being sharpened, whilst at the cheek bones it is very broad. The eyebrows, or superciliary ridges, in this nation, project very little, and the eyes are very narrow, and placed rather obliquely in the head, the external angles being the highest. The nose is very small, but has not, like that of the negro, the appearance of being flattened, and the apertures of the nostrils, which in the European are linear and parallel, in them are nearly circular and divergent, for the septum narium being much thickest towards the face, places them entirely out of the parallel line. The mouths of this nation are in general well shaped; their hair is harsh, lank, and black. Those of them that live even in the highest climates do not obtain the deep hue of the negro or Hindu; nor do such of them as live in the coldest climates acquire the clear bloom of the European."
But although the Javans are to be included under this general description, it does not follow that they bear an exact, or very striking resemblance, in person and feature, to the Chinese or Japanese, nor even that they are liable to be confounded with the Birmans or Siamese. From the former, indeed, they are far removed by many obvious characteristics; and though more nearly resembling the latter, they possess many peculiarities, which mark them out to the most careless observer as a race distinct and separate for ages, though still retaining general traces of a common origin. As we approach the limits of savage life, and recur to that inartificial, unimproved state of society, in which the primitive divergence may be supposed to have taken place, we shall find the points of resemblance increased, and the proofs of a common descent multiplied. The less civilized of the tribes inhabiting the islands, approach so nearly, in physical appearance, to that portion of the inhabitants of the Peninsula, which has felt least of the Chinese influence on the one side, and of the Birman and Siamese on the other, and exhibit so striking an affinity in their usages and customs, as to warrant the hypothesis that the tide of population originally flowed towards the islands, from that quarter of the Continent lying between Siam and China. But at what era this migration commenced; whether, in the first instance, it was purely accidental and subsequently gradual; or whether, originally, it was undertaken from design, and accelerated, at any particular periods, by political convulsions on the Continent, we cannot at present determine with any certainty, as we have no data on which to rely with confidence. It is probable, however, that the islands were peopled at a very remote period, and long before the Birman and Siamese nations rose into notice.