STAIRWAY LEADING TO THE SANCTUARY OE THE CENTRAL. TOWER 
Dieulefils Collection 
ANGKOR WAT 
It is twelve meters (40 feet) from bottom to top of stairway. The steps are unusually 
high and very narrow, so that climbing them is not only difficult but dangerous. Note the 
four carved figures in the left foreground and the delicate tracery carved above them. Almost 
every square foot, outside and inside, of this temple bears some exquisite design, carved in 
stone. 
And all of these tons upon tons of 
stone were brought from Pnom Coulen. 
nearly 19 miles away. How, overland? 
Impossible. If that submerged forest 
could tell its own history we should 
probably hear of a time when both Pnom 
Coulen and Angkor were situated upon 
the margin of Tonle Sap and the stone- 
barges went to and fro between them. 
But that triumphant forest, having driven 
back the sea, has made a malarial marsh 
near the ruins which is simply one of 
its weapons offensive. 
Cambodians, of course, can stand it, 
and the flimsy shacks of the bonzes are 
clustered about the base of the wat to- 
day, keeping up the tradition of its origin 
as a Buddhist monastery. The droning 
of their voices sounds almost constantly 
on the hot, drowsy air, as they read and 
study aloud. 
It is little heed they pay to the ever- 
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