62 MALAY POISONS AND CHARM CUBES 



from the animal and vegetable kingdoms is ^ven by 

 Winstedt in his " EngUsh-Malay Dictionary." It com- 

 prises bezoars from the rhinoceros, snake, sea-slug and 

 dragon ; from the coco-nut, jack-fi-uit, bamboo, as well 

 as petrified dew. Tengku Chik PSnambang, the 

 Inspector of Prisons referred to above, told me as a 

 remarkable incident that he once found one in the body 

 of a certain spider in Kota Bham. A genuine Oriental 

 bezoar is formed hke a calculus in concentric layers ; 

 it is generally hard and brittle, smooth, round or ovate, 

 and olive-green in colour, but occasionally light like 

 the rare concretions found in the joints of bamboos, 

 inside coco-nnts and in fruit trees. The bezoar of 

 organic origin, as distinct from a mineral bezoar, was 

 first discovered in the stomach of the pasang or Persian 

 wild goat (Capra fegagrus), but it does not appear to 

 have been found in the domesticated goat (Capra 

 hircus). Similar stones are found in the stomach, 

 intestines, and bladder of ruminants, such as the ox, 

 and in the horse and gazelle, but in the East the bezoar 

 is generally fomid m the intestines and gall-bladder of 

 smaller animals, such as the long-tailed monkey 

 (Seninopithecus), especially in the chestnnt-red langur 

 of Borneo (S. rubicundus). A soft brown variety is 

 found in porcupines. The nucleus is often a piece of 

 dart wliich has broken off short when a young animal, 

 though wounded, has reached matm-ity, but the 

 calculus may be formed by accretion round any other 

 foreign body, such as a bit of wood, straw or hair. 

 The stones are highly esteemed b}'' Chinese as an anti- 

 dote to poison and as a medicine. Malays endow the 

 hatu guliga with the power of motion and believe that 

 it feeds upon rice much in the same way as their breeding 

 pearl. The Malay test for a good batu guliga is to place 

 a little lime or chalk in the hand and rub the stone 



