Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/340

260 great ruins built of stone ornamented with carvings and mouldings. The temple of Borobodoer is 520 feet square and 120 feet high, situated on the summit of a hill, and has six terraces raised one above the other, surmounted by a cupola surrounded by seventy-two smaller temples in triple rows, with 400 figures of Buddha in niches; and there are hundreds of such ruins.

Djokjacarta, which has its sultan’s palace, is famous for the wonderful architectural remains in its vicinity.

Borobodoer, or Boro-boedoer, was erected about twelve centuries ago! For six hundred years it lay unknown and forgotten, buried in a tropical jungle. Under British domination was commenced the clearing of this jungle, which is said to have taken six weeks and to have employed hundreds of labourers.

Sourabaya is, after Batavia, the important port of Java. It contains Chinese houses and temples, Arab mosques and Malay buildings, to say nothing of the spotless white houses of the Dutch; the land is a brilliant garden, and has an additional charm in its own active volcano Bromo, which rejoices in the largest crater in the world, three miles in diameter, a bottomless pit of seething vapours and fiery floods, with volumes of smoke and red-hot stones cast up to fall back again. It seems strange that these wonderful lands do not attract more tourists than they do, and how little realisation there is in Europe of their size. [Australians are at last beginning to frequent them as holiday resorts.] Borneo, for instance, is larger than France and Germany combined. Java is 700 miles long; Sumatra is 1400. - They are generally referred to in Europe as little islands ‘“somewhere out in the East.”