“No matter where the stream is, the sea is calling it.”
“Frost and ice are made of water, but they don’t grow things like rain and dew.”
“A spark is small, but it can burn a thousand farms.”
“Don’t try to put out the burning field with tears; run for water.”
“One bad bean makes the whole basket rot.”
“Rain on a summer’s dawn means a clear day, but a rain at noon will last.”
XXIX
CHINESE ARCHITECTURE AND ART
“The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome” are unearthed a foot at a time to the wondering eyes of the world by the tireless antiquarian-architect. China has some extensive ruins that show the death struggle of a dynasty with the tooth of the destroyer, Time. Near Singan, in Shensi province, are the ruins of the tombs, arches and palaces of the builder of the Great Wall. On the left bank of the Orkhon River in Mongolia, southwest of Kuren, are the ruins of the Uigur empire, seventh to ninth centuries, A. D. These Mongols were first Buddhist, then Nestorian Christian, and afterward Mohammedan in faith, and their fathers took part in the terrific invasions of Europe that have made Russia one quarter Asiatic. Ujfalvy, Schott and Professor Thomsen have written books on the race, and Heikel and Radlov explored the ruins in 1890–1. On the right bank of the same river, fifteen miles southeast, at the edge of the Gobi Desert, are the ruins of the Mongol empire of the thirteenth century, founded by Ogodai Khan in 1234 A. D., and whose greatest conqueror, Kublai Khan, of whom Marco Polo wrote, overran all China and Turkestan. Had it not been for a lucky storm that destroyed his armada, he would have overrun Japan also.
One hundred and fifty miles northwest of Pnom Penh, in a deserted tropical jungle, are the ruins of the Khmer dynasty which ruled Cambodia from the eighth to the twelfth centuries. These gorgeous palaces were built for luxurious Oriental kings when the early Mercian, Northumbrian and Wessex chiefs were shivering in wooden huts in our primeval England. The ruins are at Angkor on the north of the Great Summer Lake. The main temple of the Angkor Wat, in a walled enclosure, is in splendid preservation, and is one pf the world’s most wonderful architectural curiosities. It is shaped like a wide Chinese temple, but has in addition splendid pagodas one hundred and eighty feet high over the entrances. The architecture is Indo-Chinese. There is much carving and sculpture, fine corridors and columns that were colored. Five miles north is another walled ruin, thirty feet in height, enclosing an area of two miles square, the walls pierced by five gorgeous gates. The ruins stand alone in the moonlight, unclaimed and untenanted. What few Siamese, Shans or Annamese may wander here, fall down in speechless worship. The dense jungle is filled with insects, reptiles, wild animals, and but for them the silence is primeval. Pierre Loti recently visited the ruins by sailing up the Mekong River from Saigon to Pnom Penh. There he took elephants and oxen one hundred and fifty miles for the Great Summer Lake, across which he paddled. His book, Un Pelerin d’Angkor, not yet translated, was issued in French by Calmann-Levy, Paris, in 1912. Other French authors on this subject are Delaporte (Voyage au Camboge); Fournereau (Les Ruins d’Angkor), and Tissandier (Cambodje-Java).