e ancient ruins of
that magnificent age of Hindu culture on the island of Java. This temple
of Boroboedoer was to be the climax of the day, and surely it is all of
that.

The fire dies out of the sky. The seven terraces of the stone temple
begin to blur into one great and beautiful pyramid. Only the innumerable
stone bells stand out against the starlit night; stone bells with the
little peepholes in them, through which the stolid countenances and the
stone eyes of many Buddhas, in calm repose, look out upon the four
points of the compass.

Night has fallen. We have seen the great Temple by crimson sunset and
now we shall see it by night.

The shadows seem to wrap its two thousand exquisite carvings, and its
Bells of Buddha in loving and warm tropical embrace. But no warmer, is
the embrace of the shadows about the Temple than the naked embrace of a
score of Javanese boys who hold to their hearts naked Javanese beauties
who sit along the terraces looking into the skies of night utterly
oblivious to the passing of time or of the presence of curious American
strangers.

Love is such a natural thing to these Javanese equatorial brown brawn
and beauties that unabashed they lie, on Buddha's silent bells, breast
to breast, cheek to cheek, and limb to limb; as if they have swooned
away in the warmth of the tropical night.

The Southern Cross looks down upon lover and tourist as we all
foregather on the topmost terrace of that gigantic shadow-pyramid of
granite.

The sound of the innumerable naked footsteps of all past ages seems to
patter along the stone terraces. Now and then the twang of the Javanese
angklong and the beautiful notes of a flute sweep sweetly into the
shadowed air.

Then comes the dancing of a half dozen Javanese dancing girls, naked to
the waist, their crimson and yellow sarongs flying in the winds of
night, as, in slow, graceful movements, facing one of the Bells of
Buddha they pay their vows and offer their bodies and their souls to
Buddha; and evidently, also to the Javanese youths who accompany them in
their dances.

The sound of the voices of these Javanese girls--who in the shadows look
for all the world like figures that Rodin might have dreamed--mingling
their laughter with the weird music; shall linger long in one's memory
of beautiful things.

Their very nakedness seemed to fit in with the spirit of the night; a
spirit of complete abandonment to beauty and worship. In their attitudes
the