Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/238

220 present day they are not indigenous to the soil, nor were they when the Portuguese first visited Java in 1522.

A short distance from the circle in which we saw these figures is the ruin of a temple, thickly surrounded with bamboo, and the Suma, a plant which bears a flower with white leaves and a yellow centre. It has a pleasant odour, and is always to be met with at shrines and in cemeteries; and the fact of its growing so plentifully here, to some extent establishes the truth of my conjecture respecting the figures which I suppose to be those of the gods of death in the Hindu time.

The temple is built in the shape of a tower standing on a large square basement, raised two or three feet from the ground, and reached by a flight of steps. It is in three stories, but the upper one has almost entirely crumbled away. The lower ones are in pretty good preservation, and it is from them alone we can derive any idea of the former