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had not succeeded in leaving his imprint on the landscape. In view 

 of the statements of our airplane pilots, who complain of the mono- 

 tony of the scenery when flying across Sumatra, and who use in this 

 context the pithy term 'kale', this situation appears not to have chang- 

 ed. On reaching the densely populated island of Java this initial im- 

 pression is, however, rapidly modified. Here the physiognomy of the 

 landscape is largely determined by the cities, the dispersed, yet prac- 

 tically omnipresent farm buildings, the extensive sawahs of the natives, 

 and the large agricultural areas under occidental management. 



Nevertheless, it soon dawned upon me not merely that this human 

 intrusion into the tropics had been accomplished at the expense of a 

 great deal of energy, but also that it could only be sustained through 

 persistent and great effort. This was strikingly brought home to me 

 by the ruins I beheld during an excursion in the Bantam district; 

 they had become engulfed in plant growth, and only the barely dis- 

 cernable inscriptions 'V.O.C still indicated that here our ancestors 

 had built and inhabited their fortifications. It was obvious that not 

 much more time would elapse before the last traces of human influence 

 would here be erased. 



However, this simple experience is not likely to impress my audi- 

 ence. Let me therefore request your attention for the description by 

 one who has expressed essentially similar impressions in a masterly 

 fashion. It is Pierre Loti who, in 'Un pelerin d' Angkor', has reported 

 on his voyage, in 1901, to Angkor in the interior of Indo-China, 

 where enormous ruins, since then restored by the French, bear witness 

 to the imposing and age-old domain of the Khmers. Here a Brahmin 

 civilization was established which built a vast number of temples, 

 richly ornamented with sculpture; a civilization that in turn was 

 superseded and ennobled by a Buddhist culture. Loti writes: 



Tl semble que, sous le bouddhisme, la ville d' Angkor connut l'apo- 

 gee de sa gloire. Mais l'histoire de son rapide et mysterieux declin n'a 

 pas ete ecrite, et la foret envahissante en garde le secret. Le petit Cam- 

 bodge actuel, conservateur de rites compliques au sens perdu, est un 

 dernier debris de ce vaste empire des Khmers, qui depuis plus de cinq 

 cents ans a fini de s'eteindre sous le silence des arbres et des mous- 

 ses . . .' 



Loti provides a vivid description of the long voyage he had to under- 

 take before at last confronting the heavily overgrown walls of ancient 



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