Geographical Society. The work is entitled “ Boro-
Boedoer, up het Eiland Java, door E. Leemans.
Leiden,” consisting of 666 pages and 393 cartoons,
thirty inches by eighteen, giving sections and accurate
measurements, as well as representations of
every bit of carving extant.
Accounts vary as to the exact age of this magnificent
ruin, the 8 th, the 1 0 th, up to the 14th century,
have been variously assigned as the period of
its erection. Trustworthy authority, however, places it
between the 1 1 th to 13th, probably the 1 2 th century,
during which Buddhism had reached its pinnacle of
glory in Java, after the expulsion of Hinduism and
before its gradual decay and eventual supersession
by Mahomedanism in the 15th century.
After a careful inspection of this wonderful monument
of former civilization, I could not but be struck
with the degenerated condition of the Java race of
to-day compared with that of six or eight centuries
ago. The people seem to have lost their arts completely,
and to have returned to a state of comparative
infancy; nor do they seem to care for their religion;
in the interior one but seldom beholds a mosque, and
rarely even in the towns on the coast. Of schools,
they are but few and far between, and proselytizing
of the natives is, or anyhow was, strictly prohibited
ten years ago.
I t may here be interesting to compare the dimensions
of Boro-Bodo with those of the Pyramid of
Gizeh : the latter is 756 feet long each face, against
400 feet; and 480 feet high, against 120 feet of the
former. We may well ask, what record of civilization
in modern times, to say nothing of monuments of such
vast dimensions, do late generations leave after two
or three hundred years’ occupation of the island?
Alas ! they are soon summed up, two words suffice to
give the result,—“ sugar and coffee.”
I had been fortunate in the weather clearing up
whilst visiting this interesting spot; but, soon after
leaving it, the sun took his final departure for the day,
and, for fear of being benighted, and also to throw off
the chill which I felt creeping over me, my clothes
being nearly saturated, I trotted off as fast as the
deep mud would let me to reach the carriage below;
still, owing to the wretched condition of the road, and
its hilly nature, requiring frequent relays of oxen, it
was eight o’clock before I arrived at Magellang,
thirty-five miles north of Djokjokarta, and about the
same distance south of Samarang. One can hardly
imagine a prettier place than this, celebrated for its