322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



They receive him, and generally accept him as a betrothed suitor, 

 when he takes up his abode in the house and becomes a kind of do- 

 mestic, almost a slave, to the family, assisting them in all their labors. 

 In this way they have an opportunity of judging what he is good for. 

 The length of this time of trial is controlled by the degree of hesita- 

 tion manifested by the young woman ; but the waiting has its com- 

 pensations. She makes it her business to prepare the quids of betel 

 and the cigarettes for her swain. This done, she puts them in a con- 

 venient place where he will find them, or she may venture to offer 

 them to him herself. The residence under a common roof is accom- 

 panied by corresponding privileges. If the authorized relations are 

 passed, and children are born, they are regarded by the law as legiti- 

 mate. Betrothed are protected by the same legal sanctions as married 

 women, and the groom has the same right over her as he would have 

 over a wife. The difference between betrothal and marriage is that 

 betrothal is more easily withdrawn from. If the rupture comes from 

 the groom, he has only to go away ; if from the young woman, her 

 parents must pay him an indemnity proportional to the services which 

 he has given during his residence in the house. 



To admire the arts of Cambodia we must go back into its past. 

 We can gain some conception of what they were by looking at those 

 immense monuments that confound our Western pride by their dimen- 

 sions, the beauty of their proportions, and the finish of their details, 

 Angkor Wat, although deserted by the crowds that once gave it life, 

 plundered by the vandalism of conquerors, aud disintegrated by time, 

 still bears comparison with the finest of our monuments. The religious- 

 sentiment has never conceived anything more elevated or grander. We 

 are forced to believe that when architecture had reached such a height, 

 the other arts must follow it if only at a distance. The two thousand 

 square yards of bas-reliefs which decorate the halls of the pagoda of 

 Angkor, and the hundreds of statues it contains, testify for sculpture. 

 The condition of music and poetry is attested by the airs and songa 

 which we still hear — the same that resounded under the ceilings of the 

 holy places centuries ago. There is no room to doubt that luxury and 

 the arts once flourished in the Khmer country. — Translated for the 

 Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique. 





TIIE WIIITE-EOOTED MOUSE. 



By CIIAKLES C. ABBOTT, M. D. 



OFTEN, as early in autumn as the first of October, the abandoned 

 nests of cat-birds and cardinal grosbeaks, and to some extent 

 those of the brown and song thrushes, will be found very frequently 

 to be tenanted by those beautiful little mammals, the white-footed 

 mice {Jlespcromys leucopxis). 



