Nature and Art, October 1, I860.] 
THE RAFFLESIA ARNOLDI. 
15V 
ends and forest law conies into force, there are 
observed, from March to September, two unquiet 
spirits, one of whom, in the dead of night, drags 
unhappy trees from the bosom of the woods, and hews 
them to pieces with fiendish delight, while the other 
piles them on a fire which burns with fury from 
sunset to sunrise. At intervals these spirits raise 
a fiendish cry — Tow ! Tow ! ! — which is answered 
by other spirits far away in the black night, till the 
forest echoes again with their noisy clamour. The 
good people of Marlotte often pay a visit to the 
watch-fire of the veilleur, as he is called, and some 
credulous people declare that his occupation is to 
prevent the deer and other game from coming out 
of the forest, and devouring the crops in the plain ; 
that there are other veilleurs stationed at other 
exits from the forest, which is completely fenced in, 
except at these places ; and that the spectral sounds 
they utter are nothing more than the Taiaut ! 
Ta'iaut ! ! of Saint Hubert, the original of our 
Tally-lio ! But why does the giant, who splits the 
young fir and oak trees with such herculean force, 
emit such uncouth sounds when his axe enters the 
heart of the wood, and shrink into the darkness 
when strangers approach 1 The simple country 
people say that when the young giant was in his 
cradle, a weasel ate away his face and left him a 
half-witted Caliban ; that since he grew up he has 
felt but one desire, one craving necessity — to be 
ever cutting, rending, destroying something ; that 
he works all day in the stone-quarries in the forest, 
where the picturesque sandstone is converted into 
most prosaic paving-stones ; and that, when night 
comes, he does the veilleur s work out of pure love 
for labour, like the Goblin in L’ Allegro, of whom 
Milton sings that — 
“In one night, ere glimpse of morn, 
His shadowy flail hath thrash’d the corn, 
That ten day lab’rers could not end ; 
Then lies him down the lubber fiend, 
And stretch’d out all the chimney’s length, 
Basks at the fire his hairy strength, 
And crop-full out of door ho flings, 
Ere the first cock his matin rings.” 
It may be that the maker of the spectral fire 
which blazes warmly in the solitude of the night is 
a mere prosaic game-watcher, and that his man 
Friday is a half-witted fellow who likes spending 
his nights out ; but we prefer to believe that the 
black huntsman has something to do with it, and 
we are convinced that when traversing the Longs 
Tochers, the Gorge aux Loups , or the Mare aux Fees 
in a dark night, there is something weird and spectral 
about the Taiaut / Taiaut ! ! hurled by these fiends 
or watchers across the forest to one another. 
We have shown, we think, that the French 
artists and their friends have exhibited their judg- 
ment in the selection of a summer retreat ; and 
when we add that the country around is full of 
interest, abounding in lovely scenes, rich valleys, 
delicious hills, and historic ruins : who will be 
surprised that those who can pack up their work, 
or leave it behind them, should quit the lialf-molten 
asphalte of the Paris Boulevards and streets in the 
dog-days for the giddy precipices, the shady bowers, 
and the mossy banks of glorious old Fontainebleau 1 
THE RAFFLESIA ARNOLDI. 
By John R. Jackson, Curator of the Museum, Royal Gardens, Kew. 
OT long since, at one of the scientific meetings 
of the Koyal Horticultural Society, Mr. 
Bateman, the celebrated orchid grower, brought up, 
as a subject for the lecture, the giant flower of 
Sumatra, liafflesia Arnoldi, with considerations of 
the possibility of its introduction in a living state, 
and its cultivation in this country. Though a 
period of forty-eight years has elapsed since the 
discovery of this extraordinary plant, it has never 
yet flowered, or even been in cultivation in any 
European botanic garden, so that, if it were now to 
be successfully cultivated, such an occurrence would 
have to be recorded as a horticultural triumph. 
The Baffiesia Arnoldi is a most interesting plant, 
not only to the botanist, but also to the general 
jiublic, and it is remarkable, that, though so long 
a time has elapsed since it was first seen by 
Europeans, nothing has been done to make the plant 
popularly known, though, of course, accounts of it 
appeared at the time in scientific works, and an 
elaborate and minute description was published in 
the “ Linnaean Transactions,” by that celebrated 
botanist Robert Brown. We are fain to believe, 
however, that a description of this vegetable 
peculiarity, to accompany Mr. Fitch’s faithful re- 
presentation of the plant, will not be uninteresting 
to the readers of Nature and Art. 
The plant is, as we have said, a native of Sumatra, 
and was discovered in the year 1818, by Sir Thomas 
Stamford Baffles, Dr. Arnold, a botanist of some 
note, and other friends, whilst on a tour into the 
interior. The discovery was first communicated to 
this country in a letter from Sir T. S. Baffles to 
Sir Joseph Banks, then president of the Boyal 
Society, dated Bencoolen, August 13th, 1818 ; and 
the description above alluded to is from a letter, 
written by Dr. Arnold to an unknown friend, 
which Sir Thomas found amongst Dr. Arnold’s 
papers after his death. He says : — 
“ Here (at Pulo Lebbar, on the Manna river, two days’ 
journey inland of Manna), I rejoice to tell you, I happened 
to meet with what I consider as the greatest prodigy of 
the vegetable world. I had ventured some way from the 
party, when one of the Malay servants came running to me 
with wonder in his eyes, and said, ‘Come with me, sir, come ! 
a flower, very large, beautiful, wonderful.’ I immediately 
went with the man about a hundred yards into the jungle, 
