TE PITO TE BENUA, OK EASTER ISLAND. 545 



died and ninety-sis small temples disposed iii live regular parallelo- 

 grams. In the center is a large cruciform temple surrounded l>y forty 

 flights of steps, richly ornamented with sculpture and containing many 



apartments. 



The tropical vegetation has mined most of the smaller temples, but 

 some remain tolerably perfect, from which the effects of the whole may 

 be imagined. About half a mile off is another temple, called Ghandi 

 Kali Bening, Tl feet square and GO feet high, in line preservation, and 

 covered with sculptures of Hindu mythology surpassing any that exists 

 iu India. Other rums of palaces, halls and temples, with abundance of 

 sculptured deities, are found in the same neighborhood. 



About so miles eastward, in the province of Kedu, is thegreat temple of 

 Borobods. It is built upon a small hill, and consists of a central dome 

 and seven ranges of terraced wall, covering the slope of » the hill, 

 forming open galleries, each below the other, and communicating by 

 steps and gateways. The central dome is 50 feet in diameter; around 

 it is a triple circle of seventy-two towers; and the whole building is 020 

 feet square and about 100 feet high. In the terraced walls are niches 

 containing cross legged tigures larger than life, to the number of about 

 four hundred; both sides of the terraced walls are covered with bas- 

 reliefs crowded with tigures carved in hard stone, which must there- 

 fore occupy an extent of nearly 3 miles in length. 



The amount of human labor and skill expended upon the great pyra- 

 mids of Egypt, sink into insignificance when compared with that re- 

 quired to complete this sculptured hill temple iu the interior of Java. 



About 40 miles southwest of Samarang, on a mountain called Junong 

 I'rau, an extensive plateau is covered with ruins. To reach the temples, 

 four flights of stone steps were made up to the mountain from opposite 

 directions, each (light containing more than a thousand steps. Traces 

 of nearly four hundred temples have been found here, and many (per- 

 haps all) were decorated with rich and delicate sculptures. The whole 

 country between this and Brambanam, a distance of 00 miles, abounds 

 with ruins, so that fine sculptured tigures maybe seen lying in ditches, 

 or built into the walls of Enclosures. 



In the eastern part of Java, at Kediri, and in Melang, there are 

 equally abundant traces of antiquity, but the buildings themselves 

 have been mostly destroyed ; sculptured figures, however, abound, and 

 the ruins of forts, palaces, baths, aqueducts, and temples can be every- 

 where t raced. 



fhe ruins of the ancient city of Majapahit cover miles of ground 

 with paved roads, walls, tombs, and gateways, while sculptures of Hindu 

 gods and goddesses of hard trachytie rock are found in the forests or 

 /// situ in temples. Some of the buildings are of brick of curious con- 

 struction; the bricks are lmined and built together without cement, 

 and yet adhere incomprehensibly. 

 LI. Mis. 2^4, pt. 1' 35 



