Chinese brought also a taste for grotto-work, once notably conspicuous in the _kraton_ of Sooltan Anom. On the road to Tagal, near the _dessa_ (village) Sunyaragi, lies a rocky labyrinth belonging to the pleasure-grounds of Sooltan Sepooh’s famous country-seat. Among other clever devices it contains an artificial cave so constructed that the _kanjeng goosti_, retiring thither on a hot afternoon for dalliance with his favourite of the hour, might shut himself completely off from the world by a discreet artificial waterfall, securing privacy behind its liquid screen and a refreshing atmosphere stimulative to amorous exercise. The Chinaman who elaborated the idea, had his eyes gouged out to prevent his creating another such wonder of architecture adapted to the diversions of oriental potentates. It seems fitting that in Java, the sweet island whose air is balm and where always the delicious sound of running water is heard, where the cult of bathing is perfected by inclination as well as necessity of climate, some of the oldest signs of civilisation are found in sheltered nooks and corners still frequented by those who appreciate an invigorating plunge. Kota Batu, near Bogor, the supposed site of the capital of Pajajaran, is an instance in point. Destroyed, says the Soondanese tradition, because the illustrious King Noro Pati had lifted up his heart to boast against the message of the Prophet, his sons completed the calamity by their wrangling for the lordship over outlying, as yet unsubjugated and unconverted dependencies, and righteousness left the country. The same reasons which made Pajajaran slow to accept the Islām, had hindered her acceptance of Hinduïsm. The mountainous Priangan was sparsely populated and, even if we accept the statements of native historians who give Hindu civilisation in West Java a long life by dating the colonisation from India back to the first century of the Christian era,[20] confined to a limited area, as the antiquities discovered make clear, it remained far behind that which reared the superb temples of Central Java. To the best of our knowledge there were never any Hindu temples at all in West Java, where the people seem to have contented themselves with prayer and sacrifice in the open. While Central Java attained to the loftiest and noblest in art, West Java vegetated until improved communication, stimulated by war and trade, brought about a dissemination of more eastern artistic notions, discernible in raised levels and terraces as those of Gunoong Jati, which remind one faintly of the Boro Budoor; in earthen walls as those on the Bukit Tronggool, which are arranged after a plan somewhat like that of the squares enclosing the principal temple and the surrounding smaller ones of the _chandi_ Sewu. Even then Polynesian clumsiness was not shaken off. At Batu Tulis, a _kampong_ in the outskirts of Bogor, where the hosts of two religions fought the battle which decided the