Experiments made with the Gum of the UPAS TREE.

In the year 1776, in the month of February, I was present at the execution of thirteen of the Emperor’s concubines, at Soura-Charta, who were convicted of infidelity to the Emperor’s bed.  It was in the forenoon, about eleven o’clock, when the fair criminals were led into an open space within the walls of the Emperor’s palace.  There the judge passed sentence upon them, by which they are doomed to suffer death by a lancet poisoned with Upas.  After this the Alcoran was presented to them, and they were, according to the law of their great prophet Mahomet, to acknowledge and to affirm by oath, that the charges brought against them, together with the sentence and their punishment, were fair and equitable.  This they did, by laying their right hand upon the Alcoran, their left hands upon their breast, and their eyes lifted towards heaven; the judge then held the Alcoran to their lips, and they kissed it.

These ceremonies over, the executioner proceeded on his business in the following manner:—­Thirteen posts, each about five feet high, had been previously erected.  To these the delinquents were fastened, and their breasts stripped naked.  In this situation they remained a short time in continual prayers, attended by several priests, until a signal was given by the judge to the executioner; on which the latter produced an instrument, much like the spring lancet used by farriers for bleeding horses.  With this instrument, it being poisoned with the gum of the Upas, the unhappy wretches were lanced in the middle of their breasts, and the operation was performed upon them all in less than two minutes.

My astonishment was raised to the highest degree, when I beheld the sudden effects of that poison, for in about five minutes after they were lanced, they were taken with a tremor, attended with a subsultus tendinum, after which they died in the greatest agonies, crying out to God and Mahomet for mercy.  In sixteen minutes by my watch, which I held in my hand, all the criminals were no more.  Some hours after their death, I observed their bodies full of livid spots, much like those of the Petechiae, their faces swelled, their colour changed to a kind of blue, their eyes looked yellow, &c. &c.

About a fortnight after this, I had an opportunity of seeing such another execution at Samarang.  Seven Malayans were executed there with the same instrument, and in the same manner; and I found the operation of the poison, and the spots in their bodies exactly the same.