212 Gilpin's forest soenbrt. 



they procure it. Hooded in leathern cases, with 

 glass eyelet-holes, and secured as much as 

 possible from the full effluvia of the air they are 

 to breathe, they undertake this melancholy jour- 

 ney, travelling always with the wind. About one 

 in ten escapes, and brings away a little box of 

 this direful commodity. 



Of the dreadful and sudden effect of this 

 poison, the author saw many instances. He 

 mentions, among others, the execution of thirteen 

 young ladies of the emperor's seraglio, who, 

 having been convicted of infidelity to his bed, 

 were condemned to die by the poison of Upas, 

 which is considered in Java, like the axe in 

 England, an honourable instrument of death.. 

 At eleven o'clock in the forenoon, these urihappy 

 victims were led into a court in the palace, where 

 a row of thirteen posts had been erected. To 

 these they were bound. As they stood trembling, 

 they were obliged to confess the justice of their 

 sentence ; which each of them did, by laying one 

 hand on the koran and the other on her breast. 

 When these confe;^sions were finished and a few 

 religious ceremonips, on a sign given by the judo-e, 



