IN JAVA. 113 



striking off, to the damage of the shrubs LgIow, hirge branches, 

 Avhich none of his servants could be induced to remove. One 

 day, having been pitchforked together and burned, they were 

 considered disposed of; but next morning the whole of his 

 labourers in the adjacent village a\voke, to their intense alarm, 

 afflicted with a painful eruption, wherever their bodies were 

 usually uncovered. It was then remejnbcred that the smoke of 

 the burning branches had been blown by the Avind through 

 the village ; this undoubtedly accounted for the epidemic ; 

 but it did not allay their fears that they were all as good as 

 dead men, for the potency of the sap as a poison is but too 

 well known to them. 



To prevent a general flight of the Avorkmen it became 

 necessary to get rid of the tree altogether, but the difficulty 

 w^as to find any one willing to lay the axe to its root. At last 

 a couple of Chinamen, after much persuasion and the offer 

 of a high fee, agreed to perform the hazardous task of cutting 

 up and carting it away. To the surprise of everybody they 

 accomplished their task without experiencing the least harm. 

 They pocketed their fee and departed in silence, without, 

 however, saying that they had at intervals during their 

 work, artfully smeared their bodies with cocoa-nut oil. 



The sap of the bark alone is hurtful, for the logs into 

 which the stripped trunk was cut were made into furniture 

 for the owner's dining-room, without ill effects to the carpen- 

 ters. The bark of another denizen of the same forest — Glnta 

 lenghas, one of the Anacardiacese — contains a sap even more 

 noxious, for, falling on the skin, it produces stubborn ulcers 

 which, on the woodcutters — who often get splashed on their 

 arms and body — require months to heal ; but its sap is not 

 used bv them for poison, as the antiarin is. It is curious to 

 reflect "^how acute native ingenuity has been in elaborating 

 a pharmacopoeia abounding in subtle articles to waste or take 

 away life, while it contains hardly one to preserve it. The 

 action of some of these preparations, whose effects I had 

 heard of as well as seen, astonished me vastly, but no bribe 

 that I could offer was tempting enough to induce their old 

 diihins to disclose their composition. 



At elevations of 5000 feet Fodocarjpus trees (of the yew 

 family), oaks and laurels formed much of the shade, under 



