Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/221

Rh worshipers made the rounds of the circular terraces, reaching to touch each image in its latticed bell, and many kept all-night vigils among the dagobas of the Nirvana circles. Less appealing was the custom, that grew up among the Chinese residents of Djokjakarta and its neighborhood, of making the temple the goal of general pilgrimage on the Chinese New Year's day. They made food and incense offerings to the images, and celebrated with fireworks, feasts, and a general May-fair and popular outdoor fête.

After the temple was uncovered the natives considered it a free quarry, and carried off carved stones for door-steps, gate-posts, foundations, and fences. Every visitor, tourist or antiquarian, scientist or relic-hunter, helped himself; and every residency, native prince's garden, and plantation lawn, far and near, is still ornamented with Boro Boeder's sculptures. In the garden of the Magelang Residency, Miss Marianne North found a Chinese artist employed in "restoring" Boro Boeder images, touching up the Hindu countenances with a chisel until their eyes wore the proper Chinese slant. The museum at Batavia has a full collection of recha, and all about the foundation platform of the temple itself, and along the path to the passagrahan, the way is lined with displaced images and fragments, statues, lions, elephants, horses; the hansa, or emblematic geese of Buddhism; the Garouda, or sacred birds of Vishnu; and giant genii that probably guarded some outer gates of approach. A captain of Dutch hussars told Herr Brumund that, when camping at Boro Boeder during the Javanese war, his men amused themselves by striking off the heads of statues with