"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.'"