Part 44
"The district in which this tree stands is called Tigulabe; near to which, and in the cliff or steep rocky ascent that surrounds the whole island, is a gutter or gully, which commences at the sea, and continues to the summit of the cliff, where it joins or coincides with a valley, which is terminated by the steep front of a rock. On the top of this rock grows a tree, called, in the language of the ancient inhabitants, _garse_, sacred or holy tree, which for many years has been preserved sound, entire, and fresh. Its leaves constantly distil such a quantity of water as is sufficient to furnish drink to every living creature in Hiero, nature having provided this remedy for the drought of the island. It is situated about a league and a half from the sea. Nobody knows of what species it is, only that it is called _til_. It is distinct from other trees, and stands by itself. The circumference of the trunk is about twelve spans, the diameter four, and in height, from the ground to the top of the highest branch, forty spans: the circumference of all the branches together is 120 feet. The branches are thick and extended, the lowest commence about the height of an ell from the ground. Its fruit resembles the acorn, and tastes something like the kernel of a pine-apple, but is softer and more aromatic. The leaves of this tree resemble those of the laurel, but are larger, wider, and more curved; they come forth in a perpetual succession, so that the tree always remains green. Near to it grows a thorn, which fastens on many of its branches, and interweaves with them; and at a small distance from the garse are some beech-trees, bresoes, and thorns. On the north side of the trunk are two large tanks or cisterns, of rough stone, or rather one cistern divided, each half being twenty feet square, and sixteen spans in depth. One of these contains water for the drinking of the inhabitants; and the other, that which they use for their cattle, washing, and such like purposes.
"Every morning, near this part of the island, a cloud or mist arises from the sea, which the south or easterly winds force against the forementioned steep cliff; so that the cloud, having no vent but by the gutter, gradually ascends it, and from thence advances slowly to the extremity of the valley, where it is stopped and checked by the front of the rock which terminates the valley; and then rests upon the thick leaves and wide spreading branches of the tree, from whence it distils in drops during the remainder of the day, until it is at length exhausted, in the same manner that we see water drip from the leaves of trees after a heavy shower of rain.
"This distillation is not peculiar to the garse or til, for the bresoes, which grow near it, likewise drop water; but their leaves being but few and narrow, the quantity is so trifling, that, though the natives save some of it, yet they make little or no account of any but what distils from the til; which, together with the water of some fountains, and what is saved in the winter season, is sufficient to serve them and their flocks. A person lives on the spot near which this tree grows, to take care of it and its waters; and is allowed a house to live in, with a certain salary. He every day distributes to each family of the district, seven pots or vessels full of water, besides what he gives to the principal people of the island."
Whether the tree which yields water at this present time, be the same as that mentioned in the above description, I cannot determine: but it is probable there has been a succession of them; for Pliny, describing the Fortunate Island, says, "In the mountains of Ombrion, are trees resembling the plant _ferula_, from which water may be procured by pressure. What comes from the black kind is bitter, but that which the white yields is sweet and potable." Trees yielding water are not peculiar to the island of Hiero; for travellers inform us of one of the same kind on the island of St. Thomas, in the bight or gulf of Guinea. In Cockburn's Voyages, we find the following account of a dropping tree, near the mountains of Fera Paz, in America.--
"On the morning of the fourth day, we came out on a large plain, where were great numbers of fine deer; and in the middle stood a tree of unusual size, spreading its branches over a vast compass of ground. Curiosity led us up to it. We had perceived, at some distance, the ground about it to be wet; at which we began to be somewhat surprised, as well knowing there had no rain fallen for nearly six months past, according to the certain course of the season in that latitude: that it was impossible to be occasioned by the fall of dew on the tree, we were convinced, by the sun's having power to exhale away all moisture of that nature a few minutes after its rising. At last, to our great amazement, as well as joy, we saw water dropping, or as it were distilling, fast from the end of every leaf of this wonderful, (nor had it been amiss if I had said miraculous) tree; at least it was so with respect to us, who had been labouring four days through extreme heat, without receiving the least moisture, and were now almost expiring for the want of it. We could not help looking on this as liquor sent from heaven, to comfort us under great extremity. We catched what we could of it in our hands, and drank very plentifully of it; and liked it so well, that we could hardly prevail with ourselves to give over. A matter of this nature could not but incite us to make the strictest observations concerning it; and accordingly we staid under the tree near three hours, and found we could not fathom its body in five times. We observed the soil where it grew to be very strong; and upon the nicest inquiry we could afterwards make, both of the natives of the country and the Spanish inhabitants, we could not learn there was any such tree known throughout New Spain, nor perhaps all America over: but I do not relate this as a prodigy in nature, because I am not philosopher enough to ascribe any natural cause for it; the learned may perhaps give substantial reasons in nature, for what appeared to us a great and marvellous secret, and far beyond our power to account for."
THE TALLOW TREE.--This is a remarkable tree, growing in great plenty in China; so called from its producing a substance like tallow, and which serves for the same purpose: it is about the height of a cherry-tree, its leaves in form of a heart, of a deep shining red colour, and its bark very smooth. Its fruit is inclosed in a kind of pod, or cover, like a chesnut, and consists of three round white grains, of the size and form of a small nut, each having its peculiar capsule, and a little stone within. This stone is encompassed with a white pulp, which has all the properties of true tallow, both as to consistence, colour, and even smell, and accordingly the Chinese make their candles of it; which would doubtless be as good as those in Europe, if they knew how to purify their vegetable, as well as we do our animal tallow. All the preparation they give it, is to melt it down, and mix a little oil with it, to make it softer and more pliant. It is true, the candles made of it yield a thicker smoke and a dimmer light than ours; but those defects are owing in a great measure to the wicks, which are not of cotton, but only a little rod of dry light wood, covered with the pith of a rush wound round it; which, being very porous, serves to filtrate the minute parts of the tallow, attracted by the burning stick, and by this means is kept alive.
THE PAPER TREE.--The name of this tree is _Aouta_. It is a mulberry-tree, found at Otaheite, in the South Sea, from which a cloth is manufactured, that is worn by the principal inhabitants. The bark of the trees is stripped off, and deposited to soak in running water; when it is sufficiently softened, the fibres of the inner coat are carefully separated from the rest of the bark; they are then placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards, one by the side of another, till they are about a foot broad; and two or three layers are put one upon another. This is done in the evening; and next morning the water is drained off, and the several fibres adhere together in one piece. It is afterwards beaten on a smooth piece of wood with instruments marked lengthways, with small grooves of different degrees of fineness; and by means of this it becomes as thin as muslin. After bleaching it in the air, to whiten it, it is fit for use.
Another article worthy of the reader's attention, is the ADANSONIA, ETHIOPIAN SOUR GOURD, MONKEYS' BREAD, or AFRICAN CALABASH TREE.--There is but one known species belonging to this genus, the _baobal_, which is perhaps the largest production of the whole vegetable kingdom. It is a native of Africa. The trunk is not above twelve or fifteen feet high, but from sixty to seventy feet round. The lowest branches extend almost horizontally, and as they are about sixty feet in length, their own weight bends their extremities to the ground, and thus form an hemispherical mass of verdure of about 120 or 130 feet diameter. The roots extend as far as the branches: that in the middle forms a pivot, which penetrates a great way into the earth; the rest spread near the surface. The flowers are in proportion to the size of the tree, and are followed by an oblong pointed fruit, ten inches long, five or six broad, and covered with a kind of greenish down, under which is a ligneous rind, hard, and almost black, marked with rays, which divide it lengthwise into sides. It is very common in Senegal, and the Cape de Verd islands; and is found 100 leagues up the country, at Gulam, and upon the sea-coast as far as Sierra Leone.
The age of this tree is no less remarkable than its enormous size. Mr. Adanson relates, that, in a botanical excursion to the Magdalen Islands, he discovered some calabash-trees, from five to six feet diameter, on the bark of which were engraved, or cut to a considerable depth, a number of European names. Two of these names, which he was at the trouble to repair, were dated, one in the fourteenth, the other in the fifteenth century. The inscribed trees, mentioned by this ingenious Frenchman, had been seen in 1555, almost two centuries before, by Thevet, who mentions them in his relation of his Voyage to Terra Antarctia, or Australis. Adanson saw them in 1749. The virtues and uses of this tree and its fruits are various. The negroes of Senegal dry the bark and leaves in the shaded air, and then reduce them to powder, which is of a pretty good green colour. This powder they preserve in bags of linen or cotton, and call it _lillo_. They use it every day, putting three or four pinches of it into a mess, whatever it happens to be, as we do pepper and salt: but their view is, not to give a relish to their food, but to preserve a perpetual and plentiful perspiration, and to attemper the too great heat of the blood; purposes to which it certainly answers, as several Europeans have proved by repeated experiments; preserving themselves from the epidemic fever, which, in that country, is as fatal to them as the plague, and generally rages during the months of September and October: when the rains have suddenly ceased, the sun exhales the water left by them on the ground, and fills the air with a noxious vapour. M. Adanson, in the critical season, made a light ptisan of the leaves of the baobal; which he had gathered in the August of the preceding year, and had dried in the shade; and drank constantly about a pint of it every morning, either before or after breakfast, and the same quantity of it every evening, after the heat of the sun began to abate: he also took the same quantity in the middle of the day, but this was only when he felt some symptoms of an approaching fever. By this precaution he preserved himself, during the five years he resided at Senegal, from the diarrhæa and fever, which are so fatal there, and which are, however, the only diseases of the place; while other officers suffered very severely, only one of them excepted, upon whom M. Adanson prevailed to use this remedy, which for its simplicity was despised by the rest. This ptisan alone prevents that heat of urine which is common in these parts, from the month of July to November, provided the person abstains from wine. The fruit is not less useful than the leaves and the bark. The pulp that envelopes the seeds has an agreeable acid taste, and is eaten for pleasure: it is also dried and powdered, and used medicinally in pestilential fevers, the dysentery, and bloody flux: the dose is a drachm, passed through a fine sieve, taken either in common water, or in an infusion of the plantain. This powder is brought into Europe under the name of _terra sigillata Lemnia_. The woody bark of the fruit, and the fruit itself, when spoiled, help to supply the negroes with an excellent soap, which they make by drawing a lie from the ashes, and boiling it with palm-oil that begins to be rancid. The trunks of such of these trees as are decayed, the negroes hollow out into burying places for their poets, musicians, and buffoons. Persons of these characters they esteem greatly while they live, supposing them to derive their superior talents from sorcery, or a commerce with demons; but they regard their bodies with horror when dead, and will not give them burial in the usual manner, neither suffering them to be put into the ground, nor thrown into the sea or any river, because they imagine that the water would not then nourish the fish, nor the earth produce its fruits. The bodies shut up in these trunks become dry without rotting, and form a kind of mummies without the help of embalming. The baobal is very distinct from the calabash-tree of America, with which it has been confounded by Father Labat.
The following is an account of a REMARKABLE OAK TREE:--
Behold the oak does young and verdant stand Above the grove, all others to command; His wide-extended limbs the forest crown'd, Shading the trees, as well as they the ground: Young murm'ring tempests in his boughs are bred, And gathering clouds from round his lofty head; Outrageous thunder, stormy winds, and rain, Discharge their fury on his head in vain; Earthquakes below, and lightnings from above, Rend not his trunk, nor his fix'd root remove. _Blackmore._
Mr. Gilpin, in his forest scenery, gives the following account of an aged oak:--
"Close by the gate of the Water-walk, at Magdalen College in Oxford, grew an oak, which perhaps stood there a saplin when Alfred the Great founded the university. This period only includes a space of nine hundred years, which is no great age for an oak. It is a difficult matter indeed to ascertain the age of a tree. The age of a castle or abbey is the object of history: even a common house is recorded by the family that built it. All these objects arrive at maturity in their youth, if I may so speak. But the tree gradually completing its growth, is not worth recording in the early part of its existence: it is then only a common tree; and afterwards, when it becomes remarkable for its age, all memory of its youth is lost. This tree, however, can almost produce historical evidence for the age assigned to it."
About five hundred years after the time of Alfred, William of Wainfleet, Dr. Stukely tells us, expressly ordered this college to be founded near the great oak; (_Itiner. Curios._) and an oak could not, I think, be less than five hundred years of age, to merit that title, together with the honour of fixing the site of a college. When the magnificence of Cardinal Wolsey erected that handsome tower which is so ornamental to the whole building, this tree might probably be in the meridian of its glory; or rather, perhaps it had attained a green old age. But it must have been manifestly in its decline, at that memorable æra, when the tyranny of James gave the fellows of Magdalen so noble an opportunity of withstanding bigotry and superstition. It was afterwards much injured in the time of Charles II, when the present walks were laid out: its roots were disturbed; and from that period it declined fast, and became reduced by degrees to little more than a mere trunk. The oldest members of the university can scarcely recollect it in better plight: but the faithful records of history[20] have handed down its ancient dimensions.
It once flung its boughs through a space of sixteen yards on every side from its trunk; and under its magnificent pavilion could have sheltered with ease three thousand men: though in its decayed state, it could, for many years, do little more than shelter some luckless individual, whom the driving shower had overtaken in his evening walk. In the summer of the year 1788, this magnificent ruin fell to the ground, alarming the college with its crashing sound. It then appeared how precariously it had stood for many years. Its grand taproot was decayed; and it had hold of the earth only by two or three roots, of which none was more than a couple of inches in diameter. From a part of its ruins, a chair has been made for the president of the college, which will long continue its memory.
This will be a proper place for introducing the history of SOME OF THE LARGEST TREES NOW GROWING IN ENGLAND.--In Hainault Forest, near Barking in Essex, there is an oak which has attained the enormous bulk of thirty-six feet in circumference. This extraordinary tree has been known for ages by the name of Fairlop. The tradition of the country traces it half way up the Christian æra. Beneath its shade, which overspreads an area of three hundred feet in circuit, an annual fair has long been held on the first Friday in July, and no booth is suffered to be erected beyond the extent of its boughs.
At Cromwell Park, near Letbury in Gloucestershire, the seat of Lord Dacre, is a huge chesnut tree, probably as remarkable for antiquity as size; having been mentioned (according to Sir Richard Atkins) in king John's days, six centuries ago, as the wonder of the neighbourhood, and measuring at present, at the foot, fifty-seven feet in circumference. It is supposed to be at least eight hundred years old.
In Darley church-yard, near Matlock in Derbyshire, is a yew tree, thirty-three feet in girt.
In the church-yard of Aldworth, in Berkshire, is a yew tree, the trunk of which, four feet from the ground, measures nine yards in circumference. It is of considerable height: all recollection of its age is lost.
THE SHELTON OAK.--About a mile and a half from Shrewsbury, where the Pool road diverges from that which leads to Oswestry, there stands an ancient decayed oak. There is a tradition, that Owen Glendwr (Glynder) ascended this tree to reconnoitre; and finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland had not joined his son Hotspur, he fell back to Oswestry, and immediately after the battle of Shrewsbury, retreated precipitately to Wales. This tree is now in a complete state of decay, and hollow, even in the larger ramifications. The following are the dimensions of the Shelton Oak:
ft. in. Girt, at bottom, close to the ground 44 3 Ditto, 5 feet from ditto 25 1 Ditto, 8 feet from ditto 27 4 Height of the tree 41 6
Vide Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxi. p. 305.
THE BOWTHORPE OAK, situate in the park between Bourne and Stamford--
"On a fine eminence, of slow ascent, The landscape round stretch'd to a vast extent,"
--is the property of Philip Duncombe Pauncefort, Esq. The trunk is thirty-nine feet six inches in circumference. The inside of the body is hollow, and the lower part of it was formerly used as a feeding place for calves, the upper, as a pigeon-house. The late possessor, George Pauncefort, Esq. (in whose family it has been for many centuries,) in 1768 had it floored, with benches placed round, and a door of entrance: frequently twelve persons have dined in it with ease.
"--------------crowds yearly flock to see In leafy pomp the celebrated tree; Charm'd to contemplate Nature's giant son, Fed by the genial seasons as they run."
No tradition is to be found respecting it, it having, ever since the memory of the oldest inhabitants, or their ancestors, been in the same state of decay.
We conclude this chapter with an essay on the UPAS, or POISON-TREE OF JAVA; by Thomas Horsefield, M. D.--From the Seventh Volume of the Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Java.
The literary and scientific world has in few instances been more grossly and impudently imposed upon, than by the account of the Bohan Upas, published in Holland about the year 1780. The history and origin of this celebrated forgery still remains a mystery. Foersch, who put his name to the publication, certainly was (according to the information I have received from credible persons, who have long resided on the island,) a surgeon in the Dutch East India Company's service, about the time the account of the Upas appeared. It would be in some degree interesting to become acquainted with his character. I have been led to suppose that his literary abilities were as mean, as his contempt of truth was consummate.
Having hastily picked up some vague information concerning the Upas, he carried it to Europe, where his notes were arranged, doubtlessly 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, in so far as relates to the situation of the Poison Tree, to its effects on the surrounding country, and to the application said to have been made of the Upas on criminals in different parts of the island, as well as the description of the poisonous substance itself, and its mode of collection, 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, which it is at present my object to establish and to illustrate.
The tree which produces this poison, is called Antshar, and grows in the eastern extremity of the island.