170 Report of a Journey Around the World. 



structure opened by the English engineers years ago, and now 

 closed again, so we could not tell where the breach was made. 

 They found within a deep well and an unfinished statue of Buddha. 

 The new patchwork is a little harsh, but necessary: one of the 

 bells has wisely been left open, as it is not easy to see the contents 

 of the others. We could not see all the view from the top for the 

 clouds which were gathering, but we found a photograph which 

 shows the volcanoes Merbabu and Merapi, the latter smoking like 

 the humans here. 



A feeling of sadness came over me as I climbed slowly down 

 the uncomfortable stairs, that this grand expression of man's con- 

 structive genius, and of a people's devout love for the gentle prophet 

 whose teachings, we can hardly doubt, have so greatly contributed 

 to the attractive disposition of the descendants of the once power- 

 ful kingdom of Metaram, was hastening to its destruction which 

 has so long been stayed by the protecting buttress put over the 

 structure by the showers of ash from Merapi or Merbabu ; but it 

 was to the remarkable man Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Lieu- 

 tenant-Governor when Java was under English rule, that we owe 

 the full discovery of a temple whose existence had been forgotten 

 as far as foreigners were concerned in the lapse of centuries. 1 



On our way back from this great temple turned inside out we 

 stopped at the little temple of Mendoet (Fig. 129) about a mile 

 away, and this has been almost rebuilt. The high stone roof had 

 fallen in without seriously injuring the colossal figures beneath 

 it (Fig. 128). Now we can see the grand Buddha (Fig. 130), and 

 on either side the Buddhistic king who built Boroboedoer, and his 

 non-Buddhistic father, and their ashes are perhaps buried beneath. 

 Certainly the Buddha is very effective in the light from the opposite 

 and only door. There are small niches which may have contained 

 lamps to illumine the figures. Signs of worship were fresh on 

 the floor. 



On the path was a tree (Leucaena glauca) , a common nuisance 

 in Hawaii, but here the seeds are eaten it seems. A slight shower 

 fell as we left the ruins and it laid the dust. We were back at the 



'The great catastrophe which devastated Central Java and covered this 

 great building, perhaps before it was completed, with ash from Merapi the 

 still smoking volcano, has not been definitely dated, but Boroboedoer has 

 never been utterly removed from daylight and its existence has never been 

 forgotten. [3 X S] 





