202 SPEEDY AND DEADLY POYSON. [1696. 



larger than either its bottom or top. Its Wood is liabby, 

 and its Leaves would nearly resemble those of our Willows, 

 were it not that they are a little larger. I have neither 

 observed Flowers nor Fruit upon it : Both the Wood and the 

 Eind are a speedy and deadly Poyson, and which as I have 

 heard, admits of no Antidote. One day as I was coming 

 thro' a Wood in my return from Hunting, I chanc'd to 

 break off a little Branch of it, and without making any 

 Eeflection, or having heard of this Tree, I put a little bit of 

 it in my Mouth. I threw it away that instant without 

 swallowing my Spittle, and yet I thought I should have 

 died of it. For twenty-four hours together, it seem'd to me 

 as if some body was throtling me, and my Throat was so 

 swell'd, I could hardly breath. In Countries where one is 

 an absolute Stranger, one ought to take particular care of 

 these sort of things. I was told the only way to distinguisli 

 the venomous Fruits in these Islands, from such as were 

 not so, was to offer them to some Ape of the Island,^ who if 

 they were naught, would undoubtedly refuse them. In the 



Mr. Seott Elliott, Bois de Ticrky Professor Balfour writes, with 

 regard to Monbnia : " It may be worth noting what may, however, be 

 merely a coincidence — the allied genus Tamboiirina has a species, Bo'is 

 tambour (there is the translator's T. tree?) — and some species of 

 Tamhourina have been called ]\Iithridatea — and this genus Avas founded 

 by Commerson, the father of so many Mascarene genera, and taken up 

 by Schreber. I do not find any poisonous qualities now attributed to 

 the Monimiacese ; but if the tree had not some reputation in connec- 

 tion with poisoning — antidotal or itself venomous — why should Com- 

 merson give it such a name? At least it should be a medicine-yielding 



tree Unless some evidence from the nomenclature takes one to 



StilUngia^ 1 should prefer to trust to the clue which such evidence 

 affords and seek for the jilant either among the Vitis or the Ifonimiacen'. 

 .... I cannot conjecture what it (the Stron.thoom) might be. It would 

 be strange if the name of so conspicuous a tree as the Mapou must 

 have been in Leguat's time was transferred to another tree without its 

 properties, even if the original IMapou were exterminated." 



1 In orig. : " parce qu'on pent a (^oup siir manger de ce qu'il mange, 

 comme on doit aussi laisser cc quil ])ersi.ste ;\ refuser." 



