Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/186

 letting fall Roots from its Branches into the Ground, that spring up again, and soon?

A.This is true. And we have diverse Trees about Batavia, and the like adjacent Islands, above fifty Foot in the Diameter.

Q. 15. What kind of Fruit is that in Jucca, which grows immediately out of the Trees's Body, and is said to breed the Plague if eaten immoderately?

A.It is a Fruit much like to Durion, which groweth in the same Manner; hath a faint Smell, and sweet waterish Taste; for my part I do not affect them: The Plague is a Disease unknown amongst the Indians; but this Fruit, as most others do, immoderately eaten, causes a Diarhea, which easily degenerates to a Tenesmus, by us called Peirsing, a dangerous Sickness, and worse than the Plague.

Q. 16. What Poison is it the King of Macassar in Colebees'' is said to have particular to himself, which not only kills a Man immediately, that hath received the slightest Wound by a Dart dipt therein, but also within half an Hour's time, makes the Flesh, touched with it, so rotten, that it will fall like Snivel from the Bones, and whose poysonous Steam will soon fly up to a Wound made with an unpoisoned Dart, if the Blood be only in the slightest Manner touch'd with a Dart infected with the Poison? What Certainty there is of this Relation?''

A.That there is such a Poison in this King's Possession is most certain; but what it is, no Christian hitherto ever knew right. By the Government of Arnold de Flamminge Van Outshorn diverse have been tortured; yea, killed.

Some say it is the Gall of a venomous Fish, others say it is a Tree which is so venomous, that those who Rh