chap, vii.] RUINED TEMPLES. 165 



Kali Bening, seventy-two feet square and sixty feet high, 

 in very fine preservation, and covered with sculptures of 

 Hindoo mythology surpassing any that exist in India. 

 Other ruins of palaces, halls, and temples, with ahundance 

 of sculptured deities, are found in the same neighbourhood. 

 Borobodo. — About eighty miles westward, in the pro- 

 vince of Kedu, is the great temple of Borobodo. It is built 

 upon a small hill, and consists of a central dome and seven 

 ranges of terraced walls covering the slope of the hill and 

 forming open galleries each below the other, and com- 

 municating by steps and gateways. The central dome is 

 fifty feet in diameter ; around it is a triple circle of seventy- 

 two towers, and the whole building is six hundred and 

 twenty feet square, and about one hundred feet high. In 

 the terrace walls are niches containing cross-legged figures 

 larger than life to the number of about four hundred, and 

 both sides of all the terrace walls are covered with bas- 

 reliefs crowded with figures, and carved in hard stone ; 

 and which must therefore occupy an extent of nearly 

 three Hides in length ! The amount of human labour and 

 skill expended on the Great Pyramid of Egypt sinks into 

 insignificance when compared with that required to com- 

 plete this sculptured hill-temple in the interior of Java. 



Gunong Pratj. — About forty miles south-west of Sama- 

 rang, on a mountain called Gunong Prau, an extensive 

 plateau is covered with ruins. To reach these temples 



