JOURNEY THROUGH LAOS FROM BANGKOK TO UBON. AP 
it is now nothing more than an enormous heap of ruins on 
which trees and creepers grow at pleasure. It was in the 
midst of these that I made these hasty notes. Several doors 
and windows, however, were to be seen, appearing out of the 
ruins. I sounded all the parts of these. Returning to the 
southern gate, I continued to follow the long wall of bas-reliefs. 
Here the direction in which the figures are walking changed. 
On the wall which terminates at the southern gate they were 
walking towards the East ; now they were advancing towards 
the West. This southern gate—I speak of the ner erection 
which must have been the palace, or a great temple raised in 
honour of Buddha—furnishes access to four porticoes of colos- 
sal proportions, the roofs of all being composed of enormous 
blocks of stone shaped and placed one on the other. I conti- 
nued to climb over the blocks lying about in ail directions, 
and I reached a series of galleries in sufficiently good preserva- 
tion to allow one to judge of the general plan. Here, as in 
almost all similar buildings of the races of Indo-China, the 
outside is generally finished while the inside, on the contrary, is 
hardly commenced. Is this intentional, or was the work 
abandoned before it was completed? Many savants are of 
the latter opinion. The gallery which I traversed is in the 
shape of a cross ; it joins other galleries, the point of intersec- 
tion being in all cases topped by adome ora pyramid. In 
one of the doorways, there was still to be seen a frame of 
carved wood partly destroyed by white ants and exposure. In 
the opposite doorway, there is also a little fragment, but these 
were the only traces of wood I could find. In a small inner 
court near the doors and windows, there are statues of Siva 
let into the wall; the figure wears a diadem on its head, and 
holds a lotus in one hand, and a garland or snake in the other. 
The neck is ornamented with a phallus, and the feet with two 
rings. Beyond this court, a pyramid rises above a doorway ; the 
stones are so put together as to form the features of a fabulous 
personage. ‘his figure is repeated on all four sides. At the 
present time only one remains, all the others have fallen down. 
In front of the south gate and spanning an inner moat, 
there is a large causeway, not so long as the one outside the 
main enclosure, which is bordered by fragments of a balustrade 
