VI - Interior of Western Gallery.<BR> <BR> From this photograph, taken in connection with the exterior represented in the preceding one, a general idea may be formed of the construction of the lowest galleries of Nakhon Wat. The mechanical arrangements of the galleries or colonnades are as perfect as their design is artistic. On the left side is a solid wall of the most exquisite masonry, where the stones are fitted together without mortar or cement of any kind, and this is a characteristic of the entire building. I believe, from what I was enabled to observe by the displacement of some of the blocks of stone, that they must have held together by metallic fixings, which are perfectly concealed in the finished structure. All trace of metal has, however, been carefully removed; and I am convinced that the temple itself would have been reduced by its plundering enemies to a heap of ruins were it not that its magnitude and rock-like stability presented too formidable an obstacle to the destroyers, who probably were as ignorant as we of the nineteenth century are of the mechanical appliances by which the ancients were enabled to transport the masses of stone from the distant quarries, and to raise them in the form of this stupendous monument.<BR> The row of pillars on the right are removed from the back wall a distance of 10 feet 6 inches. The pillars have no bases, but are adorned with the figure of a devotee in the attitude of worship. Above this figure, and running along the edge of the shaft, is a delicately cut ornament; the pillars carry an architrave, and a deep frieze, and cornice. Above the cornice is a pointed arch formed by corbeling. This arch I believe to have been originally concealed by a richly-carved wooden ceiling, a fragment of which I discovered still in its place, in an obscure part of the temple. Outside this gallery is a second, supported by the short pillars shewn in the exterior view. This outer range supports what Fergsson terms a tie-beam. One end of this beam is inserted into the inner column just below the capital, so beautifully that M. Mouhot asserts the inner columns are monoliths. The joints will be detected by a careful examination of the photograph.<BR> One of the most wonderful features of the building are the sculptured bas-reliefs. They are found in the eight compartments formed by the outer gallery, one on each side of the central group of entrances, each subject measuring from 250 to 300 feet in length, with a height of 6½ feet. Their aggregate length is over 2000 feet, and the number of men, animals, and mythological figures represented, extends to from 16.000 to 20.000.<BR> <BR> in: Album "The antiquities of Cambodia a series of photographs taken on the spot With Letterpress Description By John Thomson, F.R.G.S., F.E.S.L., Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas MDCCCLXVII"; opgenomen in KIT Library ILS (RF-279) page 33.