“The outer wall of Nagkon Wat—which words signify a city or assemblage of temples or monasteries—about half a mile square, is built of sandstone, with gateways on each side, which are handsomely carved with figures of gods and dragons, arabesques, and intricate scrolls. Upon the western side is the main gateway, and passing through this and up a causeway (paved with slabs of stone three feet in length by two in breadth) for a distance of a thousand feet, you arrive at the central main entrance of the temple. About the middle of the causeway, on either side, are image-houses, much decayed and overgrown with rank parasitic plants; and a little farther on are two small ponds, with carved stone copings, which in most places are thrown down.
“The foundations of Nagkon Wat are as much as ten feet in height, and are very massively built of the same volcanic rock as that used in the construction of the ‘Angels’ Bridge.’ The entire edifice, which is raised on three terraces, the one about thirty feet above the other, including the roof, is of stone, but without cement; and so closely fitting are the joints as even now to be scarcely discernible. The quarry where the stone was hewn is about two days’ travel—thirty miles—distant; and it is supposed the transportation of the immense boulders could only have been effected by means of a water communication—a canal or river, or when the country was submerged at the end of the rainy season. The shape of the building is oblong, being 796 feet in length and 588 feet in width, whilst the highest central pagoda rises some 250 odd feet above the ground, and four others, at the angles of the court, are each about 150 feet in height.
“Passing between low railings, we ascend a platform composed of boulders of stone four feet in length, one and a half feet in width, and six inches in thickness, and enter the temple itself through a columned portico, the façade of which is beautifully carved in basso-relievo with ancient mythological subjects. From this doorway, on either side, runs a corridor, with a double row of columns, cut—base and capital—from single blocks, with a double, oval-shaped roof covered with carving and consecutive sculptures upon the outer wall.
“This gallery of sculptures, which forms the exterior of the temple, consists of over half a mile of continuous pictures, cut in basso-relievo upon sandstone slabs six feet in width, and represents subjects taken from Hindoo mythology—from Ramayana, the Sanscrit epic poem of India, with its 25,000 verses describing the exploits of the god Rama and the son of the King of Oudh. The contests of the King of Ceylon, and Hunaman, the monkey god, are graphically represented. There is no key-stone used in the arch of this corridor, and its ceiling is uncarved. On the walls are sculptured the immense number of 100,000 separate figures (or at least heads). Entire scenes from the Ramayana are pictured; one, I remember, occupies 240 feet of the wall.
“Weeks might be spent in studying, identifying, and classifying the varied subjects of this wonderful gallery. You see warriors riding upon elephants and in chariots, foot soldiers with shield and spear, boats, unshapely divinities, trees, monkeys, tigers, griffins, hippopotami, serpents, fishes, crocodiles, bullocks, tortoises, soldiers of immense physical development, with helmets, and some people with beards. The figures stand somewhat like those on the great Egyptian monuments, the side partly turned towards the front; in the case of the men, one foot and leg are always placed in advance of the other; and I noticed, besides, five horsemen, armed with spear and sword, riding abreast, like those seen upon the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum. In the procession several of the kings are preceded by musicians playing upon shells and long bamboo flutes. Some of the kings carry a sort of battle-axe, others a weapon which much resembles a golf-club, and others are represented as using the bow and arrow. In one place is a grotesque divinity, who sits elegantly dressed upon a throne surmounted by umbrellas; this figure, of peculiar sanctity, evidently, has been recently gilded, and before it, upon a small table, there were a dozen or more ‘joss-sticks’ kept constantly burning by the faithful.[[60]] But it is almost useless to particularise when the subjects and style of execution are so diverse. Each side of the long corridor seemed to display figures of distinct feature, dress, and character.
“‘The most interesting sculptures,’ says Dr. Adolf Bastian, the President of the Royal Geographical Society of Berlin, who explored these wonderful ruins in 1864, ‘the most interesting sculptures at Nagkon Wat are in two compartments, called by the natives respectively the procession and the three stages (heaven, earth, and hell). What gives a peculiar interest to this section is the fact that the artist has represented the different nationalities in all their distinctive characteristic features, from the flat-nosed savage in the tasseled garb of the Pnom, and the short-haired Lao, to the straight-nosed Rajaput, with sword and shield, and the bearded Moor, giving a catalogue of nationalities, like another column of Trajan in the predominant physical conformation of each race. On the whole there is such a prevalence of Hellenic cast in the features and profiles, as well as in the elegant attitude of the horsemen, that one might suppose Xenocrates of old, after finishing his labours in Bombay, had made an excursion to the east.’
“There are figures sculptured in high relief (nearly life-size) upon the lower parts of the walls about the entrance; all are females, and apparently of Hindoo origin. The interior of the quadrangle, bounded by the long corridor just described, is filled with galleries—halls, formed with huge columns, crossing one another at right angles. In the Nagkon Wat as many as 1,532 solid columns have been counted, and among the entire ruins of Angkor there are reported to be the immense number of 6,000, almost all of them hewn from single blocks and artistically carved. On the inner side of the corridor there are blank windows, each of which contains seven beautifully turned little columns. The ceilings of the galleries were hung with tens of thousands of bats and pigeons, and other birds had made themselves comfortable nests in out-of-the-way corners.
“We pass on up steep staircases, with steps not more than four inches in width, to the centre of the galleries which here bisect one another. There are two detached buildings in this square. In one of the galleries we saw two or three hundred images—made of stone, wood, brass, clay—of all shapes and sizes and ages (some of the large stone idols are said to be 1,400 years old).
“We walk on across another causeway, with small image-houses[[61]] on either hand, and up a steep flight of steps, fully thirty feet in height, to other galleries crossing each other in the centre above which rises the grand central pagoda, 250 feet in height, and at the four corners of the court four smaller spires. These latter are much dilapidated and do not now display their full height; the porticoes also bear evidence of the presence of the ‘heavy hand of time.’
“There is one more gallery, and then we come to the outer corridor, and pass through a magnificent doorway to the rear of the temple, and walk round to our sala, not knowing which to admire the most, the vastness of the plan or the propriety and grace of the performance.