Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-11-11
INTERESTING RUINS.
zRcH3oEooY IN cAxBoDrA,

Rseent Explorations DESERVED csssss-Im
pessrs Architecture raker-yas tascrir
sssns~smmesse ssasses -Lspsasse.
New osisans Times pemosmtl
The year 1885 has witnessed mucl
archaeological progress OF most i'm
pcrtAnt sort. We spoke last woci
Of . memorable discovery in italy. Th'
journal dss Sopasfs furnishes US nov
with complete details OF much greatei
discovery in the extreme Orient. accom-.
plished by the grand labors OF NJ. Ay-
monicr, rewarded few months ago by
one Of the greatest reoompenses within
the power Of the Academy OF inscrip-
tons to bestow. Before touching,
however, upon the labors Of Aymonier,
twill be we'll TO review very briefly
the history Of Cambodian exploration.
Centuries ago rumors Of extraordi-
nary remains in Indo- China were brought
TO Kurope by Portuguese navigators !;
and more recently IL was known that
during the thirteenth century Chinese
officials had not only visited these mys-
terious cities, but had published recitals
Of their travels thither. Still the recitals
Of the Portuguese Of the fourteenth CEN
tory and the accounts OF the Chinese
travellers were forgotten before France
had made her first conquests IN
Cochin China. The oblivion into
which the Chinese narratives had
fallen was natural enough. When Abel
Remusat, in 1929, translated the texts.
the learned world was not yet familiar
with the histories of Buddhist mission
aries, and had not yet learned that to
great extent the marvellous accounts Of
those vossgers dealt rather with real |
facts than fctioI S. Consequently the
Chinese narration appeared from its no.
vel character work Of imagination, aud
the cities described were deemed mere
creations Of fancy-like the cities Of
the Thousand and One Nights. But in
1861, Mouhot, the French naturalist,
having ventured as far as the great lake,
whose waters overflow into the Mekong
river, suddenly discovered in tropical
forest the truth Of all that the Chinese
writers of the thirteenth century had
described. An enormous structure,
which suggested "a combination of the
Louvre, the Tuileries, the Pantheon,
Notre Dame, and Saint-Sulpice, but
oferiDga plan much more harmonious
than such combination could be-"
rose before him, halfveiled by
monstrous cieepers and tropical
foliage. This was Angkor-Vat, or
Ongkor-Wat, the colossal temple
whose form has since been made
fs-iliar by countless engrayings and
photographs. Mouhot carried his ex-
plorstions further into the twilight of
the forest, and visions still more fan
tastic and vast appeared to him. lie :
found the huge dead city of Angkor-
Thorn, inhabited now only by birds,
apes, reptiles, and tigers visited only ,
at long intervals by herds of wild ele-
plants. But in spite of the lianas, the /;
creepers, the insertion of roots between
the joints Of the masonry; in spite of :
the fact that the tropical forest had in
yaded and conquered the city for many
hundred years--the grandeur of its
architecture, the weird beauties Of its -.
sculptures, had withstood the passing .
of time. There were the gate-towers. y
whose SUBMITS are four faces, turned '
to the four winds ofheaven and crowned l."
with tremendous tiaras of stone there =
were the prodigious meats, trayersed =
by bridges in the form of seven-headed :
marble dragons, and supported by long =
files Of carven giants whose feet rested
beneath the crocodile-haunted waters.
This discovery awakened intense in !
terest; and between 1868 and 1866. :,
Lieutenant Doudart de Lagree was sent =
to Cambodia upon two-fold mission =
as we'll as scientific. Having l
succeeded in securing the recognition =
by King Norodom OF the French =
proiectorate, Lagree thoroughly ex- =
plored several provinces Of Cam :
bodia, made a multitude of new dis. Z
coyeries, and prepared a magnificent =
volume on the ancient monuments. Dy-
ing in Overwhelmingly before the
publication Of his works-he was sue
ceeded in his archaeological labors by
Francis GARNER, Lieutenant Delaporte,
DR.. Harmand, and Captain Aymonier,
besides several English and German
scientists, including the great archi-
authority, FERGUSON, and the
eminent DR.. Bastian.
In the first burst of amazement
caused by the spectacle of these re-
mains, which exceeded anything pre-
yiously dreamed Of in regard to splen-
dor, the explorers did not notice or ,
seek for any inscriptions. Angkor-Vat A
simply took their breath away work n
the Arab fables regarding the \
Of genii-a marvel whose
grotesque beauty seemed q vision of
Pandemonium. But in little
while more attention was paid to
details; and Lagree found that
all the monuments were speckled with "
which he was the first to c
copy. Then another puzzle presented y
itself. The sculptures, at first supposed V
to be all Of Buddhist origin, revealed in a
some respects a still earlier inspiration. '
The prodigious seyen.headed serpents I
whose bodies, supported by giants of Il
stone, bridged the broad meats, be- I,
longed TO the mythology of Vishnu. The j
terrific quadruple faces upon the towers o
revealed a kinship with Brahmanic r
idealism. Finally, the interminable re- I
liefs cut upon the palace walls, repre- S
sented, not the gentle legends Of Gau- s
tama, but the wilder stories contained |
in the awful epies Of the RamGyana
and the Aaha6barata. Buddha, never ]
theless, smiled there with his mysteri- Ii
Gus smile, and all the unmistakable at c
tributes Of his divinity. What problem a
was this? Certainly one to be solved h
only by the discovery Of the history Of D
civilization long dead and buried I'M Il
der the roots Of serpentplants, in the t
green gloom Of unknown forests.
II Aymonier did not solve all the d
problem, il is at least to him that the
world owes most Of its knowledge con- [
corning ancient Cambodia--the empire 8
whose vanished existence had scarcely 4
been suspected twenty years ago. The +
Inscriptions discovered and copied, and /
latterly published at Paris with types r
especially east for the purpose, were T
f.nni IA he in many lanOua0ao aud a.. u