“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. “The principal ruins of Siam and Cambodia yet discovered lie in the province of Siamrap, as already stated. At about three miles north-east of Angkor, on the opposite side of the Siamrap river, are the ruins of a city called Pentaphrohm, the citadel of Taphrohm, and near it is a _wat_ styled Phrakeoh, or the Gem Tower, presenting the same combination of a royal and priestly residence as Angkor and Nagkon Wat. Some of these temples and palaces, with their columns, sculptures, and statues, are quite as interesting, though not so well-preserved, as those at Angkor. About four miles east of Nagkon Wat are two other remains of antiquity, Bakong and Lailan.