3-021-754 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Western façade of the Temple of Ongou Wat [Angkor Wat], Cambodia, 1868. Engraving of a photograph by Mr. J. Thomson. 'Few architectural monuments of a remote antiquity in Asia are more curious than the ruined temples of Cambodia...The site is almost entirely surrounded by a thickly-grown forest of enormous trees, infested with lions and tigers...From its extent it appears to have been the work of several generations, and from its symmetry the work of a single genius. "It was with feelings of intense awe," says Mr. Thomson, "that we left the forest path to ascend the worn steps of the outer causeway. On our left a colossal statue of a lion lay half buried in the sand. Standing on the great outer causeway our eyes wandered from its exquisitely-fitted blocks of freestone across the broad ditch which surrounds the temple to the great entrance of the western gallery, whose massive square pillars stood out in bold relief in the bright sunshine, but beyond the great central mitre-shaped tower about 700 yards distant. We passed through the entrance of the gallery to find a second causeway of greater extent; there we saw the temple in all its magnificence, with its pillared galleries rising tier above tier, and terminating in the great tower".' From "Illustrated London News", 1868.