46 Geography. [Chap. V. 



Much new and valuable infopTiation respecting 

 the Asiatic Isles has also been obtained, and laid 

 before the public, by various modern travellers. 

 Since the time of Koempfer *, Japan has been vi- 

 sited by Thunberg, and others, who have made 

 interesting additions to what was before known 

 concerning that empire. The Philippine Islands 

 have been successively visited and examined by 

 Sonnerat, Forrest, and Stavorinus; the Sicnda 



Islands, by Beeckman, Marsden, Foersch f , Sonne- 



i 



* Though Koerapfer, tlie famous traveller in Japan, visited 

 tliat island towards the close of tlie seventeenth century, yet, 

 owing to his death, the account of his voyage was not published 

 till 1727, when it was laid before the public by Dr.-Scheuchzer, 

 to whom Ka:mpfer's manuscripts were committed by sir Hans 

 Sloane. 



t Foersch's narrations are not always to be relied an. His ce- 

 lebrated account of the Bohim Upas tree, said to grow in the 

 island of Java, has been long a monument of his credulity, or of 

 his disposition to exaggerate. It is somewhat surprising that 

 Dr. Dai-win should treat tliis account with so much respect. (See 

 the notes to his Botanic Garden.) The truth is, if we may credit 

 the declaration of the most credible modern tiavellers, no such 

 tree exists. It is certain, however, that the vegetable poisons of 

 some Asiatic islands are uncommonly numerous and extremely 

 virulent. In the island of Cdthts 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 rhusy probably tlie toxicodendron. 

 This species, together with the other poisonous trees on the same 

 island, is called by the natives ipo or upas. Such, indeed, is the 

 deleterious activity of this tree, that, when deprived of all poetic 

 ffX-aggeratioM, it still remains unrivalled in its powers of destruc- 

 tion. From the sober narrative of llumphius, we learn tliat no 

 otlier vegetable can Hve within a nearer distance than a stone's 

 throw; that birds, accidentally lighting on its branches, are im- 

 mediately killed by the poisonous atmosphere which surrounds it j 

 and Lluit, in order to procure the juice witli safety, it is necessary 



