THE FORGOTTEN RUINS OF INDO-CHINA 
219 
more weeks it will be 
too shallow for even a 
sampan to navigate, 
though at its maximum 
season it has a depth of 
20 meters. Seventy 
miles it is in length and 
20 miles across, and a 
smooth and beautiful 
sheet to look at now ; 
yet at the beginning of 
the rainy season it is 
only so many square 
miles of mud. At mid- 
night we reach a point 
on the coast opposite the 
mouth of a little stream 
— at least, we are told 
that there is a stream 
there. All that one sees 
is the surface of the 
lake ; a line of trees 
half of a mile away, ap- 
parently marking the 
shore, and the sampans 
ordered in advance 
waiting to take you to 
land ; for this is where 
you leave the steamer 
and begin to depend 
upon your own supplies. 
By one o'clock bag 
and baggage, including 
"Van," the indispensable 
Chinese cook, was trans- 
ferred to the sampan 
and the two Cam- 
bodians rowed toward 
the line of trees. These 
showed at one point a 
narrow opening, and I 
now saw that the reason 
I did not see the little 
stream at first was be- 
cause it was several feet beneath the 
surface of the lake. I discovered, too, 
that the line of trees was not the shore, 
but the edge of a submerged forest, and 
that there were five hours of rowing be- 
fore we reached the little village of 
Siem Reap, where the bullock carts were 
waiting to continue the journey (p. 220). 
It is a trip not soon to be forgotten, 
this voyage from midnight to morning 
throueh a submerged forest, with a full 
CAMBODIAN MOTHI^R WITH INFANT 
As every traveler knows, this is the method of carrying a child 
used throughout the Orient 
moon directly overhead in a clear sky. 
Once inside the outer line of trees, taller 
and stronger than their fellows, the ordi- 
nary forest features were reproduced — 
glades and clumps of trees, but the 
watery way everywhere. The rounded 
tops of the larger ones reached but 10 
or 15 feet above the water, but they 
brandished their harsh and rustling foli- 
age triumphantly. The smaller ones, 
still submerged, with no foliage to boast 
