454 SCENERY AND VEGETATION. 



images extremely rude and ill -fashioned, and which, fre- 

 quently, by the extensive decomposition which their 

 surfaces have undergone, appear of greater antiquity than 

 those already described. These are, in ah 1 probability, 

 representations of the local objects of worship among the 

 Javanese, before they adopted Hinduism, and which pro- 

 bably, as is still the case in Bali, continued to receive 

 some share of their adoration, after that event." The 

 appearance of the basaltic columns that adorn the 

 perpendicular sides of many of the islands was very grand 

 and imposing, simulating in several instances ruined 

 monasteries, old time-worn buildings, and picturesque 

 cathedrals, with high fretted pinnacles, 



" rocks sublime 



To human art a sportive semblance bore, 

 And yellow lichens coloured all the clime, 

 Like moonlit battlements and towers decayed by time." 



On the rugged acclivities of several steep, rocky islets, 

 hundreds of Stone-flowers, as the sailors call them, 

 (Lycopodium lepidophyttum,} were expanding their rose-like 

 heads in every direction, and the grey summits were often 

 garlanded with graceful hanging festoons formed of the 

 wild vine and various other climbers. 



Pines of several species, oaks, maples, rhododendrons, 

 brambles, azaleas, roses, violets, camellias, myrtles, mul- 

 berries, junipers, eugenias, mallows, sages, hypericums, 

 asters, gnathaliums, and hundreds of other plants are 

 observed in these islands; the parasitic Cassythis filiformis 

 is found clinging to the low bushes, and weaving them 

 together in an almost impervious mass; the larch and the 

 willow, the Ficus tinctoria and the Diospyros, the Bamboo 



