12 Allan, Bat tack Printing in Java. 



smeared over for about an inch of its surface with the 

 poison. 



There are two kinds of the so-called Upas or more 

 correctly Ipo poison in use in Borneo, but the one most 

 frequently employed is prepared from the sap of the 

 Antiaris toxicaria or Upas tree, whose leaves are 

 popularly supposed to distil a poisonous dew and under 

 whose shade it is fatal to rest. Needless to say these 

 beliefs have not the slightest foundation in truth, but of 

 the deadly effects of the prepared poison there is not the 

 slightest doubt. Injected into the system by means of an 

 arrow, sickness rapidly comes on followed by convulsions 

 and death. It has fortunately not been my lot to see its 

 effect upon the human subject, but birds fall almost as 

 if they had been shot with a gun and a wild pig pierced 

 with only one arrow was dead in less than 20 minutes 

 after being struck. 



To prepare the poison the native makes an incision 

 in the bark of the tree and collects the white milky sap 

 on a plantain leaf This is exposed to the sun until it 

 has been concentrated to a thick brown syrup, after 

 which the leaf is folded up and hung above one of the 

 cooking fires until further evaporation has reduced the 

 sap to a sticky brown mass. In this state the poison can 

 be kept for some time and when wanted for use is 

 dissolved \\\ the juice of the " tuba " root, well known for 

 its property of stupefying fish, or failing this, then tobacco 

 juice or even lemon juice may be employed, the dried 

 poison being mixed with the solvent to the consistency 

 of a thin paste into which the arrows or weapons to be 

 poisoned are dipped. 



The active principle of the poison is the glucoside 

 antiarin, the name of this as well as of the tree being 

 derived from the native name of the poison, Upas Antjar, 



