VII. - An Inner Gallery.<BR> <BR> Ascending through the great western gateway towards the centre of the temple, we enter a cruciform gallery, conducting to four courts, or rather reservoirs, surrounded with open pillared galleries. This portion of the building is shewn at B in the ground plan, and is remarkable for its symmetry of construction. The view is taken from the point B, looking towards D. The pillars here, as in the inner range of the external corridors, have no base. Just below the capital, and extending about half-way down the shaft, we find a series of long inscriptions, which can be translated by the Cambodian priests, and are said to contain the records of offerings made by distinguished individuals who at different periods visited the temple. The pillars, as will be seen from the photograph, carry an architrave and a deep frieze, ornamented with female figures in graceful dancing attitudes, called by the natives Tewadah or Chao Savan (dwellers in heaven). Above the frieze is an exquisitely sculptured cornice, from which rises a pointed arch formed by corbeling. The general form of this portion of the building has a striking resemblance to the form of the Gothic structures of the twelfth century - when the pointed arch was introduced where there was a nave and side aisles and a transept on each side, forming the arms of a cross. In Nakhon Wat the rows of pillars take the place of the walls in the Gothic examples. Passing to the left, along an arm of the cross, we have before us one of the reservoirs, part of which is shewn in the next photograph.<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 37.