Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/221

 INDIAN ISLANDERS. 201 in bass-reliefs while niches in the walls give room to statues, all of them preserving a degree of sym- metry and proportion little to be expected in such structures. What is still more remarkable is, that we see no gross or indecent representations ; and seldom any even very fantastic or absurd, if we ex- cept the Hindu objects of worship, which occupy the interior of the temples, and which are seldom exhibited in the external decorations. It is evident that the whole of the sculptures must have been executed after the construction of the buildings, the only obvious and practicable means of deli- neating figures and groups of such magnitude and extent, on a variety of different stones. The or- naments strictly architectural may be described to consist of frizes, cornices, and architraves, and a sort of flat pilastres carved in the stone, and not set into them. There exist no ballustrades, colonnades, nor pillars in any shape, the absence of ^11 of which gives to the structures a heavy and in- elegant look, notwithstanding the profusion of minute ornament. Upon the whole, the struc- tures themselves are individually too small, the entrances to them are mean, the interior is dark and contracted ; and the impression left on the mind is, that a vast deal of excellent materials, of jskill, time, and labour, have been wasted without producing a corresponding effect, even abstracting from the buildings all character of utility, and con-