1 
19^ THE ISLAND OF JAVA. 
species, standing on the middle of a naked plain, of a nature 
so baneful that not only birds, beasts, and every living crea- 
ture which come within the circle of the atmosphere con- 
taminated by its poisonous effluvia, instantly perish, but so 
deleterious as to wither up and destroy all other plants, and 
to devour, like Saturn, its ovm offspring as they pullulate 
from its roots. Such a monster in nature, with " its thousand 
" tongues steeped in fell poison," is almost too much for the 
^ page of romance, or the wildest fiction of poetry. Yet the 
relation was not wholly discredited. " That which is 
" strange," says Dr. Johnson, " is delightful, and a pleasing 
" error is not willingly detected." The magic pen of Dr. 
Darwin, by celebrating the wonders of this wonderful tree 
" In sweet tetrandrian monogynian strains," 
made the error still more pleasing, and consecrated, as it 
were, the fiction of the Upas. 
As fabulous stories have sometimes, however, their origin 
in truth, so that of the Upas may probably not be wholly 
groundless, but admit of some explanation. In tropical cli- 
mates, plants possessing noxious qualities are very common. 
Java is considered to abound with them. The first of this 
kind that was discovered might probably have the name of 
Upas conferred on it, which name, being afterAvards adjunc- 
tively applied to all other plants possessing the same quali- 
ties, became the appellative for every poisonous tree. That 
this was the common acceptation of the word Upas, I in- 
ferred from its being connected with the trivial name of all 
-such plants as were either known, or supposed, to contain 
