Chapter UJUNGTANAH to UMBRELLA of U by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

attended by their friends and relations. Here they generally remain some days, in expectation of a favourable breeze. During that time the ecclesiastic prepares them for their future fate by prayers and admonitions. When the hour of their departure arrives the priest puts them on a long

leather cap with two glasses before their eyes, which comes down as far as their breast, and also provides them with a pair of leather gloves. … “The worthy old ecclesiastic has assured me, that during his residence there, for upwards of thirty years, he had dismissed above seven hundred criminals in the manner which I have described; and that scarcely two out of twenty returned,” … &c. &c.—London Magazine, Dec. 1783, pp. 512–517.

The paper concludes:

“[We shall be happy to communicate any authentic papers of Mr. Foersch to the public through the London Magazine.]”

1789.—

“No spicy nutmeg scents the vernal gales,

No step retreating, on the sand impress’d,

Fierce in dread silence on the blasted heath
Fell Upas sits, the Hydra Tree of death;
Lo! from one root, the envenom’d soil below,

Darwin, Loves of the Plants; in The Botanic Garden, Pt. II.

1808.—“Notice sur le Pohon Upas ou Arbre à Poison; Extrait d’un Voyage inédit dans l’Intérieur de l’Ile de Java, par L. A. Deschamps, D.M.P., l’un des compagnons du Voyage du Général d’Entrecasteaux.

“C’est au fond des sombre forêts de l’ile de Java que la nature a caché le pohun upas, l’arbre le plus dangereux du règne végétal, pour le poison mortel qu’il renferme, et plus celèbre encore par les fables dont on l’a rendu le sujet. …”—Annales des Voyages, i. 69.

1810.—“Le poison fameux dont se servent les Indiens de l’Archipel des Moluques, et des iles de la Sonde, connu sous le nom d’ipo et upas, a interessé plus que tous les autres la curiosité des Européens, parce que les relations qu’on en a donné ont été exagérées et accompagnées de ce merveilleux dont les peuples de l’Inde aiment à orner leurs narrations. …”—Leschenault de la Tour, in Mémoire sur le Strychnos Tieute et l’Antiaris toxicaria, plantes venimeuses de l’Ile de Java. … In Annales du Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Tom. XVIième, p. 459.

1813.—“The literary and scientific world has in few instances been more grossly imposed upon than in the account of the Pohon Upas, published in Holland about the year 1780. The history and origin of this forgery still remains a mystery. Foersch, who put his name to the publication, certainly was … a surgeon in the Dutch East India Company’s service about the time. … I have been led to suppose that his literary abilities were as mean as his contempt for truth was consummate.

Having hastily picked up some vague information regarding the Oopas, he carried it to Europe, where his notes were arranged, doubtless by a different hand, in such a form as by their plausibility and appearance of truth, to be generally credited. … But though the account just mentioned … has been demonstrated to be an extravagant forgery, the existence of a tree in Java, from whose sap a poison is prepared, equal in fatality, when thrown into the circulation, to the strongest animal poisons hitherto known, is a fact.”—Horsfield, in Batavian Trans. vol. vii. art. x. pp. 2–4.

1822.—“The Law of Java,” a Play … Scene. Kérta-Sûra, and a desolate Tract in the Island of Java.

“Act I. Sc. 2.
Emperor. The haram’s laws, which cannot be repealed,

One chance, indeed, a slender one, for life,
All criminals may claim. Parbaya, Aye, I have heard
Of this your cruel mercy;—’tis to seek
That tree of Java, which, for many a mile,
Sheds pestilence;—for where the Upas grows
It blasts all vegetation with its own;
And, from its desert confines, e’en those brutes
That haunt the desert most shrink off, and tremble.
Thence if, by miracle, a man condemned
Bring you the poison that the tree exudes,
In which you dip your arrows for the war,
He gains a pardon,—and the palsied wretch

“Act II. Sc. 4.

Pengoose. Finely dismal and romantic, they say, for many miles round the Upas; nothing but poisoned air, mountains, and melancholy. A charming country for making Mems and Nota benes!”

“Act III. Sc. 1.

Pengoose. … That’s the Divine, I suppose, who starts the poor prisoners, for the last stage to the Upas tree; an Indian Ordinary of Newgate.

Servant, your brown Reverence! There’s no people in