Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/239

Rh fined ornament and lavish decoration reached their limit at the hands of the early Hindu sculptors. The Sepoy soldiers who came with the British engineers were lost in wonder at Kalasan, where the remains of Hindu art so far surpassed anything they knew in India itself; while the extent and magnificence of Brambanam's Brahmanic and Buddhist temple ruins amaze every visitor—even after Boro Boeder.

We had intended to drive from Boro Boedor across country to Brambanam, but, affairs of state obliging us to return from our Nirvana directly to Djokja, we fell back upon the railroad's promised convenience. In this guide-bookless land, where every white resident knows every crook and turn in Amsterdam's streets, and next to nothing about the island of Java, a kind dispenser of misinformation had told us that the railway-station of Brambanam was close beside the temple ruins; and we had believed him. The railway had been completed and formally opened but a few days before our visit, and our Malay servant was also quite sure that the road ran past the temples, and that the station was at their very gates.

When the train had shrieked away from the lone little station building, we learned that the ruins were a mile distant, with no sort of a vehicle nor an animal nor a palanquin to be had; and archæological zeal suffered a chill even in that tropic noonday. The station-master was all courtesy and sympathy; but the choice for us lay between walking or waiting at the station four hours for the next train on to Solo.

We strolled very slowly along the broad, open country road under the deadly, direct rays of the midday