“It is indeed,” replied Miss Harson; “and this is the case with many of the trees found in these warm countries, where the inhabitants know little of the arts and manufactures, and would almost starve rather than exert themselves very greatly.  There is another species of bread-fruit, called the jaca, or jack, tree, found on the mainland of Asia, which produces its fruit on different parts of the tree, according to its age.  When the tree is young, the fruit grows from the twigs; in middle age it grows from the trunk; and when the tree gets old, it grows from the roots.”

[Illustration:  JACK-FRUIT TREE.]

There was a picture of the jack tree with fruit growing out of the trunk and great branches like melons, and the children crowded eagerly around to look at it.  All agreed that it was the very queerest tree they had yet heard of.

“The fruit is even larger than that of the island bread-fruit,” continued their governess, “but it is not so pleasant to our taste, nor is it so nourishing.  It often weighs over thirty pounds and has two or three hundred seeds, each of which is four times as large as an almond and is surrounded by a pulp which is greatly relished by the natives of India.  The seeds, or nuts, are roasted, like those of smaller fruit, and make very good chestnuts.  The fruit has a strong odor not very agreeable to noses not educated to it.”

“Miss Harson,” said Malcolm, “what is the upas tree like, and why is it called deadly?”

“It is a tree eighty feet high, with white and slightly-furrowed bark; the branches, which are very thick, grow nearly at the top, dividing into smaller ones, which form an irregular sort of crown to the tall, straight trunk.  There is no reason for calling it deadly except a foolish notion and the fact that a very strong poison is prepared from the milky sap.  The tree grows in the island of Java, and for a long time many fabulous stories were told of its dangerous nature.  Travelers in that region would send home the wildest and most improbable stories of the poison tree, until the very name of the upas was enough to make people shudder.  It is said that a Dutch surgeon stationed on the island did much to keep up the impression.  He wrote an account of the valley in which the upas was said to be growing alone, for no tree nor shrub was to be found near it.  And he declared that neither animal nor bird could breathe the noxious effluvia from the tree without instant death.  In fact, he called this fatal spot ‘The Valley of Death.’”

“And wasn’t it true, Miss Harson?”

“Not all true, Clara; some one who had spent many years in Java proved these stories to be entirely false.  Instead of growing in a dismal valley by itself, the graceful-looking upas tree is found in the most fertile spots, among other trees, and very often climbing plants are twisted round its trunk, while birds nestle in the branches.  It can be handled, too, like any other tree; and all this is as unlike the Dutch surgeon’s account as possible.  One of his stories was that the criminals on the island were employed to collect the poison from the trunk of the tree; that they were permitted to choose whether to die by the hand of the executioner or to go to the upas for a box of its fatal juice; and that the ground all about the tree was strewed with the dead bodies of those who had perished on this errand.”