[27] Batavian Transactions, vol. viii. Introductory Discourse.
[30] It is remarkable that the teak tree, which, as far as our information yet extends, is not to be found on the peninsula of Malacca, or on Sumatra or the adjacent islands, should grow in abundance on Java and several of the islands which lie east of it: as on Madúra and its dependent islands, Báli, Sumbáwa, and others. Sumbáwa produces a considerable quantity. The whole of the hills on the north-east part of that island under Bíma are covered with it; but from the constant demand for the timber, the trees are seldom allowed to grow to more than a foot in diameter, except in the forests exclusively appropriated to the use of the sovereign. In Dómpo, which occupies the central division of the same island, the teak cannot be used by any but the sovereign, and the trees are in consequence allowed to attain their full size. The timber is here uncommonly fine, and by the natives considered superior to that of Java; but the forests being surrounded by steep hills, and the population but scanty, it cannot be transported to the sea-coast without great labour and expense. On Celebes the teak tree is only known in a few spots. The principal forest is in the district of Mario; and this does not appear to be indigenous, as the natives assert that the seed from which the forest has grown, was brought from Java about eighty years ago by one of the sovereigns of Tanété.
[31] The Dutch, apprehensive of a failure in the usual supply of teak timber, have long been in the habit of forming extensive plantations of this tree; but whether from a sufficient period not having yet elapsed for the trial, or that the plantations are generally made in soils and situations ill calculated for the purpose, experience, as far as it has yet gone, has shown, that the trees which are left to the operations of nature, attain to greater perfection, even in a comparatively barren soil, unfit for any other cultivation, than those which are with great care and trouble reared in a fertile land. Their wood is more firm, more durable, and of a less chalky substance than that of the latter.
[33] Although a serious refutation of the gross imposition practised on the people of Europe, by the romance of Foersch on the subject of the upas, or celebrated poison-tree of Java, may at this day be in a great measure superfluous, as the world has long ceased to be the dupe of his story, and as regular series of experiments have been instituted, both in France and in England, to ascertain the nature and potency of the poison; yet it may not be altogether displeasing to the reader to see in this place an authentic account of the poison, as drawn out by Dr. Horsfield at my request, and published in the seventh volume of the Batavian Transactions. Almost every one has heard of its fabulous history, which, from its extravagant nature, its susceptibility of poetical ornament, its alliance with the cruelties of a despotic government, and the sparkling genius of Darwin, whose purpose it answered to adopt and personify it as a malignant spirit (in his Lives of the Plants), has obtained almost equal currency with the wonders of the Lerna Hydra, the Chimera, or any other of the classic fictions of antiquity.