THE FORGOTTEN RUINS OF INDO-CHINA 
229 
And it will become dry land eventu- 
ally. By daylight one can see for many 
miles the summit of Pnom Crom, situ- 
ated on the very margin of the lake, 
utterly destitute of trees, its brown sides 
fissured with deep gullies and looking 
very much like an enormous sugar-loaf 
slowly dissolving. Looking about the 
country one may see other "pnoms," 
or eminences, likewise melting into the 
lake ; so the day of the triumph of the 
trees is at hand. 
These causes afford some solid basis 
of fact for the Cambodian fish stories, 
for the lake is undoubtedly a natural fish 
trap. As its waters recede, at the end 
of the dry season, the fish must needs 
crowd up into the shallow little streams 
that feed it. A few crumbs of bread 
thrown upon the water brought swarms 
of minnows around the sampan ; but this 
also brought such grunts and whines of 
disapproval from the Cambodian oars- 
men, to see good bread squandered on 
fishes, that the remainder of the loaf 
went to them. 
They even laid aside their home-made 
cigarettes while they ravenously de- 
voured the dry bread. I offered each 
of them a cigar with a colored paper 
label around it. The poor fellows re- 
moved their hats, tucked them under 
their arms, and advanced reverently 
with bowed heads and extended palms. 
Excess of gratitude could do no more. 
It was broad daylight when I reached 
Siem Reap, after rowing and poling the 
boat for five hours through mud, water, 
and mosquitoes ; then an hour and a half 
of jolting in a bullock cart, and there 
through the trees were the towers of the 
temple of Angkor Wat. 
The first glimpse one gets of the ruins 
is when a rounded tower appears through 
the trees a mile or so distant, just a mo- 
ment, and then no more till you are there. 
It is Angkor Wat, the most recent, the 
best preserved, the most classic and or- 
nate of them all, though not the largest. 
There are many others scattered about 
this wide plain, including Angkor Tom, 
only a mile away ; but these are all ruins, 
indeed, while the wat might still be 
called a building. 
Standing in front of the temple grounds 
(the word ivat means a temple), you see 
a moat some 30 rods wide surrounding 
the premises like a medieval castle, and 
crossed by a stone causeway leading to 
the main entrance. This entrance is 
itself a massive tower, flanked by two 
others only a little smaller, set in the 
inclosing wall. The whole inclosure is 
800 by 1,000 meters, and its area is 
therefore 176 acres. Passing through 
the entrance, you see the elevated stone 
causeway, flanked by several small tem- 
ples, leading up to the wat in the dis- 
tance. 
At a distance you get the effect of 
lateral magnitude only, for the entire 
structure or group of structures is sitting 
flat on a level plain, unaspiring and al- 
most uninspiring. Had it been placed 
upon an eminence, and there is one not 
many rods away — but what's the use? 
The builders no doubt had their reasons, 
and they can't give them now. 
It is not a little surprising, however, 
to look at the central tower and hear 
that it is actually 65 meters, 213 feet, 
from its summit to the level of the plain. 
It is not till one enters the galleries 
and begins to measure distances rela- 
tively therefrom that the grandeur and 
impressiveness of the conception begins 
to make itself felt. Those same rounded 
towers now spring aloft, and the inner 
temple itself is raised above a surround- 
ing gallery, which is in turn terraced 
above an outer and surrounding gallery, 
till the roof of the latter is on a level 
with the base of the former. These two 
encompassing galleries and the cruciform 
temple building proper within them are 
the main details in the ground plan of 
the wat. 
The material used throughout in the 
construction is a grayish sandstone 
which the French call "gres." It much 
resembles marble in closeness and fine- 
ness of grain, and it stands weathering 
admirably. Where portions of the deco- 
rative detail had been affectionately ca- 
ressed and stroked by admiring hands, 
the stone is as smooth as polished marble. 
The effect of the color is certainly as 
somber as could be conceived, and to see 
it in ruins is painfully suggestive of the 
grayness of death. 
