Geographj. $41 



Islands, by Beeckman, Marsden, Foersch/ 

 SoNNERAT, Thunberg, Forrest, and Le Poivre; 

 Amhoyna and Celebes by Rumphius ; and Ceylon by 

 Thunberg; besides the numberless details re- 

 ceived concerning less important islands, and by 

 less conspicuous travellers, at difix^rent periods of 

 the century. 



At the commencement of the period under re- 

 view, the interior of Africa was even less known 

 than the Asiatic continent. In fact, little more 

 had been done than to survey the coasts, and to 

 mark the capes and harbours of this quarter of the 

 globe. But since that time, by the exertions of a 

 number of intelligent and persevering travellers, 

 our knowledge of that extensiv^e country has rapidly 

 increased; and there seems to be a fair prospect of 

 our curiosity being, at no great distance of time, 

 much more fully gratified. Early in the century, 

 the travels of Dr. Shaw into Barbary, of Pococke 

 and Norden into Egypt, and of Kolben to the 



p FoERscn's narrations are not always to be relied on. His celebrated 

 account of the Bobun Upas tree, said to grow in the Island of Jania, has 

 been long a monument of his credulity, or of his disposition to exaggerate. 

 It is somewhat surprising that Dr. Darwin should treat this account 

 with so much respect. (See the notes to his Botanic Garden.) The truth 

 is, if we may credit the declaration of the most creditable modern travel- 

 lers, no such tree exists. It is certain, however, that the vegetable poi- 

 sons of some Asiatic islands are uncommonly numerous and extremely 

 virulent. In the island of Celebes they are so frequent and deadly that 

 it has been called the Isle of Poisons. It produces, we are told, the 

 dreadful Macassar poison, a gum which exudes from the leaves and bark 

 of a species of rhus, probably the toxicodendron. This species, together with 

 the other poisonous trees on the same island, is called by the natives ipo or 

 vpas. Such, indeed, is the deleterious activity of this tree, that, when 

 deprived of all poetic exaggeration, it still remains unrivalled in its powers 

 of destruction. From the sober narrative of RuMpnius, wt learn that no 

 other vegetable can live within a nearer distance than a stone's throw; that 

 birds, accidentally lighting on its branches, are immediately killed by the 

 poisonous atmosphere which surrounds ic; and that, in order to procure 

 the juice with safety, it is necessary to cover the wliole body with a thick 

 cotton cloth. If a person approach it bare-headed, it causes the hair to 

 fall off; and a drop of the fresh juice, applied on the skin, if it do not 

 produce immediate death, will cause an ulcer very dilUcult to be cured.— 

 :>ee Pink^rton'* Geogr^ipLy^ vol. i. p. 517. 



