Page:Life in Java Volume 2.djvu/265

 CHATEAU d'eau. 249

amid an incessant sound of rushing and falling water. When the lake and rivulets were full, and the primitive fountains played, his abode must have resembled some of those enchanting habita- tions described in the "Ai'abian Nights." Almost in every room there is a fountain. The water still continuing to flow in many of the upper chambers, rushes in torrents from the top of the towers, falling over steps, arranged on purpose, into the basins below. In the courts adjoining are numerous tanks, profusely ornamented with birds, fish, animals, and serpents in stone. These sculp- tured figures are ])laced in every direction some appearing to glide through artificial brushwood, and otiu-rs perched on trees. The water must once have been ejecte<l in glittering streams from every mouth and nostril; but, as I concluded, owing to sometbing wrong in their internal mechanism, or the dellection of the water hito some other channel, few now discharge their oliice. One room, rather

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