and bas-reliefs, and adorned with numbers of statues, 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 in his life seen "such stupendous and finished specimens of
human labour, and of the science and taste of ages long since forgot,
crowded together in so small a compass as in this spot." They cover a
space of nearly six hundred feet square, and consist of an outer row
of eighty-four small temples, a second row of seventy-six, a third
of sixty-four, a fourth of forty-four, and the fifth forming an inner
parallelogram of twenty-eight, in all two hundred and ninety-six small
temples; disposed in five regular parallelograms. In the centre is
a large cruciform temple surrounded by lofty flights of steps richly
ornamented with sculpture, and containing many apartments. The tropical
vegetation has ruined most of the smaller temples, but some remain
tolerably perfect, from which the effect of the whole may be imagined.
About half a mile off is another temple, called Chandi Kali Bening,
seventy-two feet square and sixty feet high, in very fine preservation,
and covered with sculptures of Hindu mythology surpassing any that exist
in India, other ruins of palaces, halls, and temples, with abundance of
sculptured deities, are found in the same neighbourhood.
BOROBODO.--About eighty miles westward, in the province 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
communicating 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 miles 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 complete
this sculptured hill-temple in the interior of Java.
GUNONG PRAU.--About forty miles southwest of Samarang, on a mountain
called Gunong Prau, an extensive plateau is covered with ruins. To reach
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