statement that the Government did not intend to deviate from the line of conduct, adopted after mature deliberation in regard to the ancient monuments of Java, restricting its care to preservation of the remains ... a characteristic sample of Governmental cant in the face of grossest carelessness and the kind of preservation inflicted on the _chandi_ Panataran or wherever its officials felt constrained by public opinion to act upon make-believe circulars from Batavia and Buitenzorg before pigeon-holing them. And so the perplexing inconsistencies of Dutch East Indian finance, parsimony playing _chassez-croisez_ with boundless prodigality, are faithfully mirrored in the tribulations of the _chandi_ Mendoot: the reauthorised work of restoration was stopped again, on the usual progress killing plea of _kurang wang_, after the adjustment of the first tier above the cornice, and the temple, bereft of its crowning roof in dagob style, calculated to fix the basic conception in the beholder’s mind, has in its stunted condition been aptly compared to a bird of gorgeous plumage, all ruffled and with the crest-feathers pulled out. [Illustration: XXIV. _CHANDI_ MENDOOT AFTER ITS RESTORATION (Archaeological Service.)] The operations were hampered by still other contrarieties. A tremendous battle was waged apropos of the question whether or not gaps in the layers of stones of the front wall above the porch pointed to the existence of a passage or passages for the admittance of air and light to the inner chamber; if so, whether or not those passages inclined at an angle sufficient to let the sun’s rays illumine the head of the principal statue in that inner chamber. To rehearse the heated dispute is not profitable: as usual, after the _chandi_ had fallen into ruin and an endless official correspondence had lifted its ruin into prominence, archaeological faddists of every description tried to acquire fame with absurd suggestions and crazy speculations. Leaving their theories regarding the inclinations of the axes of probable or possible transmural apertures for what they are, more instruction is to be derived from the decorative arrangements. The inherent beauty of the ornament survived happily the injurious effects of changing monsoons, of ruthless robbery, of preservation in the Government sense of the word. When the sun caresses it, the Friendly Day, under the blue vault of the all-compassing sky, smiling at this gem of human art, offered in conjugal obedience by the earth, which trembles at his touch, it seems a sacrificial gift of reflowering mortality to heaven. In art, said Lessing, the privilege of the ancients was to give no thing either too much or too little, and the remark of the great critic, as here we can see, applies to a wider range of classic activity than he had in mind. Wherever the ancient artist wrought, in Greece or in Java, we find moreover that he drew his inspiration directly from nature;