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Show FRANK VINCENT, JR., the author and traveler, publishes in the American Geographical Bulletin an interesting account of his exploration of "The Wonderful Ruins of Cambodia." Since the exhumation of the buried cities of Assyria by Bolts and Layard, nothing has occurred, says the author, so startling, or which has thrown so much light on Eastern art, as the discovery, seventeen years ago, of the ruined cities of Cambodia by Monhot and Bastian - cities containing palaces and temples as splendid and stupendous as any in Egypt, Greece, or Rome. Though historically these relics may not be of such importance to us as those of Nineveh and Babylon, yet from an ethnological point of view, they scarcely admit of over-estimation. It may be said that few countries present a more striking picture of lapse from the highest pinnacle of greatness to the last degree of insignificance and barbarism than Cambodia; nor is there a nation at the present day which can show so few traditions of the past or produce so few clues to her ancient history. For beyond the half-fabulous records of the Chinese historians and a few legends which, it is to be feared, are more the invention of a subtle yet barbaric priest-hood than an authentic narrative handed down from generation to generation, we have no account relative to this once powerful but now degraded country.-Home Journal. |