Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/247

Rh then gone abroad, and greed for its riches led Khublai Khan to despatch an armada to its shores; but his Chinese commander, Mengki, returned without ships or men, his face branded like a thief's. Another expedition was defeated, with a loss of three thousand men, and the Great Khan's death put an end to further schemes of conquest. Marco Polo, windbound for five months on Sumatra, then Odoric, and the Arab Ibn Batuta, who visited Java in the fourteenth century, continued to celebrate the riches and splendor of this empire, and invite its conquest, until Arab priests and traders began its overthrow. Its princes were conquered, its splendid capitals destroyed, and with the conversion of the people to Mohammedanism the shrines were deserted, soon overgrown, and became hillocks of vegetation. The waringen-tree's fibrous roots, penetrating the crevices of stones that were only fitted together, and not cemented, have done most damage, and the shrines of Loro Jonggran went fast to utter ruin.

A Dutch engineer, seeking to build a fort in the disturbed country between the two native capitals, first reported these Brambanam temples in 1797; but it was left for Sir Stamford Raffles to have them excavated, surveyed, sketched, and reported upon. Then for eighty years—until the year of our visit—they had again been forgotten, and the jungle claimed and covered the beautiful monuments. The Archæological Society of Djokja had just begun the work of clearing off and rescuing the wonderful carvings, and groups of coolies were resting in the shade, while others pottered around, setting bas-reliefs in regular lines around