THE UPAS. 413 



Mr. Crawfurd observes* that the word upas "is not a 

 specific term, but the common name for poison of any 

 description whatever." He says that Antiaris toxicaria, 

 although the common source of the vegetable poison in 

 use, does not yield so intense a poison as the Chetik, a 

 large creeping plant found only in Java. This is the 

 same plant Strychnos Tieute, "Tshettik" or "Tjettik," I 

 have alluded to in my notice of the Upas-tree, as the 

 Upas-Radja of the Japanese. The symptoms produced 

 by the Strychnos poison are nervous, while those produced 

 by the juice of the Antiaris act chiefly on the vascular 

 system. The violent effects of the latter are certainly 

 very much exaggerated, and from what I have noticed 

 myself and gathered from hearsay, I am inclined to agree 

 with Mr. Crawfurd, who observes very truly that "it 

 proves hurtful to no plant around it, and creepers and 

 parasitical plants are found winding in abundance 

 about it; " and in another place "beneath the shade of it 

 the husbandman may repose himself with as much 

 security as under that of cocoa-palm or bamboo." The 

 supposed remedy which Rumphius mentions under the 

 names of Bakung and Radix-toxicaria is the Crinum 

 asiaticum of Roxborough,f the bulbs of which act bene- 

 ficially by inducing violent vomiting. 



Mr. Brooke, in his journal, makes the following obser- 

 vation on this famous poison-tree, and the plants sometimes 

 confounded with it: "On the authority of Sulerman, 

 an intelligent Meri man, I am told that the tree below the 

 town is the real upas, called by the Meri men tajim. 



*Hist. Incl. Arch. vol. i. p. 467 

 f Flor. Ind. Vol. 2. p. 128. 



