My Journey from Paris to Java by Honore de Balzac

Author:Honore de Balzac [Balzac, Honoré de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Editions Didier Millet Pte Ltd
Published: 2010-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

I wasn’t long in Java before hearing about the local marvel – the upas, the only tree of its type in the world and whose awful effects cast so great an influence over Javanese customs. According to the island’s traditions, the upas grows at the centre of an extinct volcano, whose awful miasmas it exhales and where, by the caprice of nature, it pumps out appallingly harmful substances which it is distilling continuously. Tofana, Brinvilliers, the science of chemistry, indeed humanity in all its capacity for evil-doing, is surpassed by one tree, by one of its leaves even, and by a pure chance of nature. It is enough to dip the point of a dagger into the bark of the upas tree, with one quick cut, to lend the blade the properties of cyanide. As soon as this toxic steel pricks the skin of a man, he drops dead at once with no convulsions or any sign of pain. Not only does the sap give the steel this power of death but the tree exhales its murderous vapour so quickly and with such intensity that its shade will kill a man who stays under it any longer than is necessary to prick the trunk with his dagger. In any case this operation can only take place windward of the tree. Air, as it passes by the tree becomes fatal in the immediate vicinity. If the wind changes during the short time a Javanese spends staining the point of his dagger, he expires at once.

Animals and birds and all living things recognise this dreadful effect and fear it as a throne of death. Offshoots of the main tree grow all around and form a fearful enclosure through which few people pass. This sinister plant grows in solitude. It reigns there, an image of those ancient Asian kings whose look could kill.

You will understand that naturalists confine themselves to conjecture about this unique tree, not directly observed; and as it allows no strollers or artists anywhere near, it has escaped the attention of our all-powerful magazines. But since science is not usually wrong, scientists have bravely classified it as one of the species of Strychnos, trusting in the received wisdom of the Javanese.

The following story illustrates the philanthropic means by which the natives get hold of this insidious poison. When a Javanese is condemned to death by his tribal leader he will be pardoned if he can successfully bring back a poisoned dagger. No more than three or four out of ten criminals escape the caprices of the upas tree.

I obviously wanted to see this singular tree and I approached it from the windward side at a prudent distance. Armed with a telescope I could tremble quite at ease at the frontier of this kingdom of terror, to which Danton and Robespierre should have been transported. I cannot remember ever having seen in my mind’s eye, either in the mass graves of the Bible, or in the most fantastical scenes of a corpse-strewn literature, a spectacle of such appalling majesty.

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