76 
TEMPLES OE DLKETA. 
professes to be a great sportsman. He showed me his guns, 
and amongst them a very nice rifle ; he also made his people 
bring the legs of a banting which had been killed the day 
before by one of his men with a spear ; the man went into the 
jungle to cut wood when he saw something move just ahead 
of him, he threw his spear at it, and much to his astonish- 
ment, found he had killed a full grown cow banting, the 
spear having, fortunately for him^ severed the spinal marrow, 
I was anxious to visit a curious temple lately discovered 
near the foot of the Klutt, and started soon after sunrise with 
Mr. La Rona for Bleeta. On the road we saw the immense 
amount of devastation caused by the ashes which fell during 
the eruption. 
The Bleeta temple, the original shape of which I 
cannot determine, is now a square mass of ruin with 
three terraces or platforms, the walls of which are most 
superbly carved in high relief, portraying different ceremonies 
and processions. Each tablet is separated from the next by 
a circular ornament, in the centre of which is some animal 
exquisitely carved. I noticed nearly every animal common to 
Java, as well as carvings of the elephant, the camel and 
the cassowary ; in all the figures the proportions were very 
correct. It was remarkable how very curiously the roots of 
the trees have eaten up as it were some of the smaller temples 
or gateways, and what was still more curious, the trees and 
roots had in some instances put on the form of the temples 
they had destroyed. Some rascally Mohamedan fanatics 
have mutilated every human figure in the temples by cutting 
off the noses. I believe this is universal. In all the temples 
in Java there is hardly a single figure with a perfect nose. 
The monsters ! I should like to have the grinding of their 
noses. 
