The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

80 'THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [niAi-.by the solemnity and picturesque beauty of tlie scene, and is ledto ponder on the strange law of progress, which looks so like retrogression,and which in so many distant parts of the world hasexterminated or driven out a highly artistic and constructiverace, to make room for one which, as far as we can judge, is veryfar its inferior.Few Englishmen are aware of the number and beauty of thearchitectural remains in Java. They have never been popularlyillustrated or described, and it will therefore take most personsby surprise to learn that they far surpass those of CentralAmerica, perhaps even those of India. To give some idea ofthese ruins, and jjerchance to excite wealthy amateurs to explorethem thoroughly and obtain by photography an accurate recordof their beautiful sculptures before it is too late, I will enumeratethe most important, as briefly described in Sir Stamford Raflles'History of Java.Brambaxam.—Near the centre of Java, between the nativecapitals of Djoko-kerta and Surakerta, is the village of Brambanam,near which are abundance of ruins, the most importantbeing the temples of Loro-Jongran and Chandi Sewa. At Loro-Jongran there were twenty separate buildings, six large andfourteen small temples. They ai'e now a mass of ruins, but thelargest temples are supposed to have been ninety feet high.They were all constructed of solid stone, everywhere decoratedwith carvings and bas-reliefs, and adorned with numbers ofstatues, many of which still remain entire. At Chandi Sewa,or the "Thousand Temples," are many fine colossal figures.Captain Baker, who surveyed these ruins, said he had never inhis life seen " such stupendous and finished specimens of humanlabour, and of the science and taste of ages long since forgot,crowded together in so small a compass as in this spot." Theycover a space of nearly six hundred feet square, and consist of anouter row of eighty-four sniall temples, a second row of seventysix,a third of sixty-four, a fourth of forty-four, and the fifthforming an inner parallelogram of twenty-eight ; in all twohundi'ed and ninety-six small temples, disposed in five regularparallelograms. In the centre is a large cruciform temple suri-oundedby lofty flights of steps richly ornamented withsculpture, and containing many apartments. The tropical vegetationhas ruined most of the smaller temples, but some remaintolerably perfect, from which the efiect of the whole may beimagined.About half a mile off is another temple called Chandi KaliBening, .seventy -two feet square and sixty feet high, in very finepi'eservation, and covered with sculptui'es of Hindoo mythologysurpassing any that exist in India. Other ruins of palaces, hallsand temples, witli abundance of sculptured deities, are found inthe same neighbourhood.BoROBODO.—About eighty miles westward, in the province ofKedu, is the great temple of Borobodo. It is built upon a small