THE BUINS OF BOEO BUDUB IN JAVA. 221 



tiles the architectural ornaments which they could easily remove or 

 break off ; and he thus accounts for the fact that an immense 

 number of these ornaments, which are wanting in their proper 

 places, are found strewing the ground all around the building. 

 " The Buddhists," says M. Wilseis", " overpowered and driven back, 

 saw themselves surrounded and threatened with destruction in the 

 neighbourhood of Boro Budur. The monument is transformed in- 

 to a fortress. But nothing stays the Moslems — neither the sanctity 

 of the place nor the despair of its defenders. The air resounds with 

 their fanatical war-cry of " Allah," and the turbaned zealots ad- 

 vance to the assault of Boro Budur. The Buddhists at bay lay 

 their hands upon the antefixes on the cornices, the bells, and other 

 ornaments ; they tear them down and hurl them upon the assail- 

 ants. But it is in vain ; the Moslems mount one gallery after 

 another. The dead bodies of the Buddhists lie on one another in 

 heaps, the last of the defenders fall on the circular terraces, and 

 the crescent planted on the summit of Boro Budur looks down in 

 triumph upon all the country round, and seems to utter a sarcastic 

 defiance of the Buddhas." 



M. Beumukd, on the contrary, thinks there is no sufficient his- 

 torical support of the truth of this picture. He doubts whether 

 there were wars of religion of this violent character in Java, and 

 •considers that there would be more evident marks of them in 

 the defacement of the statues if this had been the case. He attri- 

 butes the destruction of the temple or monument of Boro Budur 

 to the natural results of the neglect into which it fell after the 

 triumph of Islam, and to the powers of nature — the earthquakes, 

 the luxuriant growth of tropical vegetation, and the influence of 

 the droughts and the rains in their turn. 



Since the building has been discovered and cleared of the 

 jungle and the earth in which it had been buried, the work of des- 

 truction has been continued by fresh agents. The natives have 

 carried off some of the stones to build their own houses. Boys 

 tending their buffaloes and sitting down under the shadow of the 

 walls have amused themselves with chopping the sculptures with their 

 knives, and — worst of all — civilised Europeans have carried off the 

 statues, or, if these were too heavy, have taken the heads of the 

 Buddhas from the outside walls and the niches to place them in. 



