THE ISLAND OF JAVA. 191 
Nardiis or spikenard, sandal wood, and Calambac or aloes 
wood, are products of Java, and form a part of the trade 
with China. The Cassia Fistula, with its long pendent seed 
pods filled with a medullary substance in which the beans are 
embedded, was once considered as one of the most approved 
laxatives, and great quantities of it were sent to Europe, but 
modern practitioners have expelled this drug, among a whole 
host of former remedies, from the pages of the Pharmacopoeia. 
The roots of the Caladi Ayer or Water Caladi (the Arum Es- 
culent urn) furnish, when boiled, an article of food ; and the 
broad leaves, as a topical application, are considered to be 
efficacious in dispelling the pains of the gout. The Calamus 
Rotang is a very useful creeper, and is worked into chair 
bottoms, mats, and sofas. 
After the notoriety which the baneful Upas has obtained 
from the republication, in a popular work, of a most extraordi- 
nary account of this poisonous tree that first appeared several 
years ago in the Gentleman's Magazine, it would have been 
an unpardonable neglect in us not to make very particular in- 
quiry into the degree of credibility wliich is attached by the 
inhabitants of the island to its existence ; and, if such tree 
did exist, to endeavour to learn how far its deleterious quali- 
ties might correspond with those which had been ascribed to 
it. Accordingly we seldom entered a garden or plantation 
without interrogating the people employed in them as to the 
Upas. The result of our inquiries was little favourable to the 
truth of Foersdi^ relation, which carries with it, indeed, in- 
ternal marks of absurdity. It required some ingenuity to con- 
ceive the existence of a single tree, the sole individual of its 
