infamous disfiguration and desecration, which makes any one unaccustomed to Dutch East Indian processes shudder with horror, never disturbed the aesthetic sense or equanimity of the several occupants of the residency who, during the last thirty-five years, saw it going on under their very eyes, the eyes of the representatives of a Government lavish in circulars[54] recommending the country’s antiquities to their care. Neither are those eyes shocked by the “museum” adjoining the residency, a jumble of plunder from _chandis_ far and near; nor by the chaotic mass of torsos, arms and legs, fragmentary evidence of wholesale spoliation behind that pitiful exhibition of archaeology turned topsyturvy. So much for the statuary removed from the _chandis_, as far as it can be traced. Concerning the _chandis_ themselves, it should be remembered that the greater part has wholly disappeared. Hillocks, overspread with brushwood, sometimes awaken hopes that by digging foundations and portions of walls may be discovered; heaps of debris, tenanted by lizards and snakes, point to structures of which nothing that is left, indicates the former use; shattered ornamental stones speak of magnificent buildings fallen or pulled down--glimmerings of splendour that was. The temples still standing are reduced to ruins and diminish almost visibly in attractiveness and size. Rouffaer[55] gave an interesting example of their fate in the story of the spiriting away of the _chandi_ Darawati: in 1889 tolerably well preserved, though two large statues of the Buddha had been dragged off to the dwelling of a European in the _dessa_ Gedaren, it was gone in 1894--vanished into air! The temples constructed of brick, like the _chandi_ Abang, have suffered even more, of course, than those of stone, the memory of whose grandeur is retained in a few ghastly wrecks. Reserving the Buddhist remains for later treatment and passing by the Sivaïte caves with rectangular porches in the Bagelen, mentioned by Fergusson, I shall deal here with the _chandis_ Suku and Cheto, and the most noteworthy ruins in the southern mountains. The latter comprise the _kraton_ of Ratu Boko, Mboq Loro Jonggrang’s father, as the natives call it, and the temple group of the Gunoong Ijo. Of the legendary kingly residence little more is left than a square terrace with portions of a wall and the sill of a gate. The _chandi_ Ijo consists of a large temple of the usual polygonal form with ten smaller ones and a pit which contained two stone receptacles and strips of gold-leaf with the image of a deity and an inscription; the buildings are in a sad condition, but decay has not impaired their beauteous dignity and the landscape alone repays a visit to Soro Gedoog, an estate whose gradual reclamation of the jungle led to their discovery in 1886 when ground was cleared for an extension of the plantations.