his cool retreat from the ardour of a tropical sun. A silvery curtain
of murmuring water fell before his sculptured couch, and supplied this
haunt of dreams with an ideal, if rheumatic environment of poetic
beauty and lulling charm. Superstition clings to the deserted
resting-place, and to touch even the stone columns of the royal couch
is to invoke the powers of evil, and the presence of Death. The _Sumoor
Gamelon_, or "Musical Spring," echoing with the voice of flowing
waters, flanks the ancient banqueting hall, and cools a circle of
vaulted grottoes, their shadowy depths bathed in the emerald twilight,
deepened by the veil of verdure and the transparent foliage drooping
over open window spaces. The Sultan's oval bathing tank, with stone
galleries and spiral pavilions, occupies a hollow tower, but a touch of
young life dispels the gloom, for a group of brown children swim and
dive in the cool depths, shouting and splashing with a merriment
unsubdued by the solemn sadness of the deserted halls. A Portuguese
architect designed this fantastic retreat for an old-time Sultan, who
brought the idea of the Water Castle from a far-off Indian home. The
earthquake of 1867 rendered the Taman Sarie uninhabitable, choked the
lake in which it stood, and destroyed the subaqueous tunnel which
ensured the absolute seclusion of Sultan and harem. The famous Marshal
Daendels, weary of waiting for an interview with a dilatory Sultan,
yielded to natural impatience, and hearing the sound of distant music
from the watery depths, dashed through the thicket of tamarinds which
concealed the entrance to the water pavilion, and, dragging the Sultan
from the place of dreams, scattered _bedayas_ and _gamelon_ players in
terror, forcing the so-called "Regent of the World" and "Shadow of the
Almighty" to accompany him to the Dutch headquarters. Rose garden and
shrubbery, palm grove and pleasaunce, are fast relapsing into
impenetrable jungle. Broken fountains, and mouldering vases once
filled with orange-trees, outline the balustraded terraces; gilt
pavilions lift their upcurved eaves above a wild growth of oleander,
but the enchanted scene of old romance is given up to bats and lizards,
for the crumbling Taman Sarie is now a fast-vanishing monument of
Java's buried past.

The number of _rechas_, or sacred stone figures of Brahmin and Buddhist
origin, in the garden of the Dutch Residency, shows the scant care
bestowed on the ancient temples, for years