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tant Russia with their tapers in their hand and their eyes full of tears, would open his arms to welcome them. .

And now we consider with the most impartial indulgence this spot unique in the world, which is the church here; this spot filled eternally with the perfume of incense and the sound of chanting prayers.

THE MARBLE MOUNTAIN OF ANAM.

(From "From Lands of Exile.")

THE caverns are peopled with idols; the entrails of the rock are haunted; spells are sleeping in these deep recesses. Every incarnation of Buddha is here- and other, older images, of which the Bonzes no longer know the meaning. The gods are of the size of life; some standing up resplendent with gold, their eyes staring and fierce; others crouched and asleep, with half-closed eyes and a sempiternal smile. Some dwell alone, unexpected and startling apparitions in dark corners; others numerous company-sit in a circle under a marble canopy in the green, dim light of a cavern; their attitudes and faces make one's flesh creep; they seem to be holding council. And each one has a red silk cowl over his head - in some pulled low over the eyes to hide their faces, all but the smile : one has to lift it to see them.

The gilding and Chinese gaudiness of their costumes have preserved a sort of vividness that is still gorgeous; nevertheless they are very old; their silken hoods are all worm-eaten; they are a sort of wonderfully preserved mummies. The walls of the temple are of the primeval marble rock, hung with stalactites, and worn and grooved in every direction by the trickling water oozing from the hill above.

And lower down, quite at the bottom, in the nethermost caverns, dwell other gods who have lost every trace of color, whose names are forgotten, who have stalactites in their beards and masks of saltpeter. These are as old as old as the world; they were living gods when our western lands were still frozen, virgin forests, the home of the cave-bear and the giant elk. The inscriptions that surrounded them are not Chinese, they were traced by primeval man before any known era; these basreliefs seem earlier than the dark ages of Angcor. They are antediluvian gods, surrounded by inscrutable things. The Bonzes still venerate them, and their cavern smells of incense.

ch.

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