The
Day After My Arrival, Mr. Ball Drove Me Over To The Village Of
Modjo-Agong, Where He Was Building A House And Premises For The
Tobacco Trade, Which Is Carried On Here By A System Of Native
Cultivation And Advance Purchase, Somewhat Similar To The Indigo
Trade In British India.
On our way we stayed to look at a
fragment of the ruins of the ancient city of Modjo-pahit,
consisting of two lofty brick masses, apparently the sides of a
gateway.
The extreme perfection and beauty of the brickwork
astonished me. The bricks are exceedingly fine and hard, with
sharp angles and true surfaces. They are laid with great
exactness, without visible mortar or cement, yet somehow fastened
together so that the joints are hardly perceptible, and sometimes
the two surfaces coalesce in a most incomprehensible manner.
Such admirable brickwork I have never seen before or since. There
was no sculpture here, but an abundance of bold projections and
finely-worked mouldings. Traces of buildings exist for many miles
in every direction, and almost every road and pathway shows a
foundation of brickwork beneath it - the paved roads of the old
city. In the house of the Waidono or district chief at Modjo-
agong, I saw a beautiful figure carved in high relief out of a
block of lava, and which had been found buried in the ground near
the village. On my expressing a wish to obtain some such
specimen, Mr. B. asked the chief for it, and much to my surprise
he immediately gave it me.
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