interference with “collectors” limited itself to notices, stuck up on a bambu fence, warning them of the danger they ran from the roof falling in. It needed two years more of demolition, the walls bulging out, the copings tumbling down, before the correspondence, opened in 1882 anent a desirable restoration, produced some result; before the Mendoot, the jewelled clasp of that string of pearls, the Buddhist _chandis_ pendent on the breast of Java from the Boro Budoor, her diamond tiara, was going to be refitted. And how? It is an unpleasant tale to tell: after two decades of consideration and reconsideration, in the fourth year of the preliminary labours of restoration, the local representative of the Department of Public Works, put in charge of the job as a side issue of his already sufficiently exacting normal duties, aroused suspicions concerning his competency in the archaeological line. An altercation with Dr. Brandes, followed by more controversy _de viva voce_, in writing and in print, led to compliance with his request that it might please his superiors to relieve him from his additional and subordinate task as reconstructor of ancient monuments. From that moment, January 2, 1901, until May 1, 1908, absolutely nothing was done and the scaffoldings erected all round the building were suffered to rot away, symbolic of the extravagant impecuniosity of a Government which never cares how money is wasted but always postpones needful and urgent improvements till the Greek Kalends on the plea of its chronic state of _kurang wang_.[129] When most of the fl. 8600, fl. 7235, fl. 25142 and fl. 4274, successively wrung from Parliament for excavations and restoration, had been squandered on what Dr. Brandes considered to be bungling patchwork, the expensive, useless scaffoldings, becoming dangerous to the passers-by in their neglected state, necessitated the disbursement, in 1906, of fl. 350 for their removal. On the continuation of the work, in 1908, by other hands, of course a new one, also of teak-wood, had to be erected. And, the restoration once more being under way on the strength of fl. 6800 grudgingly allotted, Parliament decided finally that no sufficient cause had been shown to burden the colonial budget with the sum which, according to an estimate of 1910, was required to bring it to an end! The profligately penurious mandarins of an exchequer exhausted by almost limitless liberality in the matter of high bounties, subsidies, allowances, grants for experiments which never lead to anything of practical value; in the matter of schemes which cost millions and millions only to prove their utter worthlessness,--the penny-wise, pound-foolish heads refused, after an expenditure of fl. 52401 to little purpose, to disburse fl. 21700 or even fl. 7000 more for the completion of the work commenced, this time under guarantee of success. Arguments advanced to make them revoke their decision, were met with the