318 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[March, 
is no doubt that Java would produce many of the spices which 
abound in the Moluccas, particularly the nutmeg and clove. The 
vine was once extensively cultivated in some of the eastern prov- 
inces of the island ; but the Dutch East India Company discour- 
aged it, because they then possessed the Cape of Good Hope, 
where the business would be more profitable. 
It is doubtless expected that before we leave this subject, a word 
should be said respecting the far-famed Upas-tree, of Java ; for 
though ihe fable, for such it was, in detail, has long been exploded, 
it is not every reader that knows on what basis the romantic fic- 
tion was erected. A Dutch surgeon, by the name of N. P. Foersch, 
was, according to his own account, in the service of the Dutch 
East India Company, at Batavia, in the year seventeen hundred and 
seventy-six, and having heard much of the terrible effects of the poi- 
son of the hohun upas, resolved to ascertain the fact whether there 
was such a tree or not. The result of his alleged investigation was 
first pubHshed in an English dress, in a very popular London 
periodical, called the Gentleman's Magazine, in seventeen hun- 
dred and eighty -three, from which it was copied into almost every 
similar publication on both sides of the Atlantic. He professes 
to relate nothing but facts of which he was an eyewitness, as 
"I was resolved (says he) to trust only to my own observations." 
Foersch describes the very location of this " hydra-tree of 
death" as being only eighty miles from Batavia, and sixty from 
Tinkjoe, which would place it on the map of Java in the area of 
a triangle formed by Mount Tankuban, Mount Maruyung, and 
Mount Tilo, — near the line of the great ndilitary road, occupying 
about the centre of our third division of Java. He says, " I have 
made the tour all around this dangerous spot at about eighteen 
miles from the centre, and I found the aspect of the country on 
all sides equally dreary." He conversed with the old Malayan 
priest who prepared the criminals to go on their perilous embassy 
after the poison, and was assured by him that out of great num- 
bers he had sent, not more than one out of ten survived to return ; 
with some of these the surgeon also conversed. He describes 
the upas-tree as the sole individual of its species, standing alone, 
in a scene of solitary horror, on the middle of a naked blasted 
plain, surrounded by a circle of mountains, the whole area of 
which is covered with the skeletons of birds, beasts, and men. 
