OF PLANTS. 203 



Borneo, and Bali, as well as in Celebes. But the Dutch 

 surgeon, Forsch, first spread the wild tales of the Poison- 

 tree of Java about the end of the eighteenth century. His 

 letter upon it appeared originally in 1781, and, after a 

 time, was translated into almost every European language, 

 its contents being received into all the manuals of 

 Natural History and Geography. The Commissioners of 

 the Batavian Society, Van Rhyn and Palm, gave a very 

 different report in 1789, for they not only declared that all 

 Forsch's narratives were false, but wholly denied the exist- 

 ence of such a Poison-tree in Java. Staunton, Barrow, 

 and Labillardiere expressed similar opinions ; while, on the 

 other hand, Deschamp, who sojourned in Java several years, 

 declared that the Upas occurred pretty frequently in the 

 district of Palembang, but that there was no more danger in 

 its vicinity than in that of any other poisonous plant. In 

 1712 the cautious and sober Kampfer added, in his ample 

 account of the Poison-tree of Celebes, " but who could 

 repeat anything after an Asiatic, without mixing up fables 

 in his statement?" Nevertheless, the more recent re- 

 searches of Leschenault (1810), of Dr. Horsfield (1 802-18), 

 and lastly of Blume, have fully confirmed the accuracy of 

 all the different reports, and shown us how the confounding 

 and mingling of very distinct things gave rise to all those 

 certainly partly fabulous narratives. 



Two very different trees grow in those little visited 

 primeval forests of Java, All the paths leading to them 

 are closed and watched, like those leading to the gates of 

 the Holy of Holies. With fire and axe must the road 

 be made through the impenetrably interwoven mass of 

 Lianes, the Paullinias, with their clusters of great scarlet 

 blossoms several feet long, the Cissi or wild Vines, on the 



