140 BOTANY OF INDIA. 



tion. The pain rapidly spread along the arm as far as the 

 armpit. I was then seized with frequent sneezing, and 

 with a copious running at the nose, as if I had caught a 

 violent cold in the head. About noon I experienced a pain- 

 ful contraction of the back of the jaws, which made me fear 

 an attack of tetanus. I then went to bed, hoping that re- 

 pose would alleviate my suffering ; but it did not abate : on 

 the contrary, it continued during nearly the whole of the 

 following night ; but I lost the contraction in the jaws about 

 seven in" the evening. The next morning the pain began 

 to leave me, and I fell asleep. I continued to suffer for two 

 days, and the pain returned in full force when I put my 

 hand into water. I did not finally lose it for nine days."* 

 These effects did not arise from any peculiarity in the con- 

 stitution of M. Leschenault, for a workman in the garden 

 was affected in the same way. There is, however, a nettle 

 in Timor, called daoun sctaji, or devil's leaf, the effects of 

 which are said by the natives to last for a year, or even to 

 cause death itself, t 



Cannabis sativa, or the common hemp, another plant of 

 this family, is less known out of Europe for its useful fibre 

 than the intoxicating and stupifying qualities of its leaves. 

 The Hottentots resort to it for the purpose of inebriation, 

 and call it dacha. By the Turks it is named malach ; by 

 the Persians beyig. In some parts of India, among Euro- 

 peans at least, it is known by the name of bhanff, and is 

 consumed very generally by the natives, especially in the 

 northern parts of Hindostan. It was formerly put to the 

 vilest purposes. " State-prisoners in Mysore," says Dr. 

 Fryer, a writer in the latter part of the last century, " are 

 sent bv the king's order to a place of punishment, where 

 the keeper, being informed of the heinousness of the crime, 

 mingles for them a drink made of bhang, the juice of an 

 intoxicating sort of hemp. This at first they refuse ; but 

 on receiving the addition of some diitnj, made from the 

 deadly solanum, called poss, it makes them so foolishly mad, 

 that, after a week's taking, they crave it more than ever 

 they nauseated.''^ 



* Introduction to the Natural System, p. 93. t Lindley 



$ Pr, Fryer's Account of East India and Persia. 



