innumerable sculptures, worked with delicacy and artistic feeling
in a hard, intractable, trachytic rock, and all found in one
tropical island. What could have been the state of society, what
the amount of population, what the means of subsistence which
rendered such gigantic works possible, will, perhaps, ever remain
a mystery; and it is a wonderful example of the power of
religious ideas in social life, that in the very country where,
five hundred years ago, these grand works were being yearly
executed, the inhabitants now only build rude houses of bamboo
and thatch, and look upon these relics of their forefathers with
ignorant amazement, as the undoubted productions of giants or of
demons. It is much to be regretted that the Dutch Government does
not take vigorous steps for the preservation of these ruins from
the destroying agency of tropical vegetation; and for the
collection of the fine sculptures which are everywhere scattered
over the land.

Wonosalem is situated about a thousand feet above the sea, but
unfortunately it is at a distance from the forest, and is
surrounded by coffee plantations, thickets of bamboo, and coarse
grasses. It was too far to walk back daily to the forest, and in
other directions I could find no collecting ground for insects.
The place was, however, famous for peacocks, and my boy soon shot
several of these magnificent birds, whose flesh we found to be
tender, white, and delicate, and similar to that of a turkey. The
Java peacock is a different species from that of India, the neck
being covered with scale-like green feathers, and the crest of a
different form; but the eyed train is equally large and equally
beautiful. It is a singular fact in geographical distribution
that the peacock should not be found in Sumatra or Borneo, while