Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/244

 210 BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. itself to this country. Unfortunately, they were utterly destroyed in the disastrous fire that occurred in December 1866 at the Crystal Palace, where they were being exhibited, and this before they had been photographed, or any serious attempt made to compare them with other sculptures. Since that time other collections have been dug out of another monastery eight miles further westward, at Takht-t- Bahai, and by Dr. Bellew at a third locality, 10 miles south- ward, called Shahr-i-Bahlol, some of which have found their way to this country. In 1874 Dr. Leitner brought home an extensive collection, principally from Takht-i-Bahai, which have now gone to Berlin. 1 Again, since the extension of British rule over the North -West Frontier Province during the last few years, numerous fresh sites have been discovered and excavated. 2 But since they were first discovered, numerous sites have been rifled, at least once ; " mostly without definite plan and with motives not altogether disinterested. The history of these depredations would be long and lamentable from the exploit of the Colonel who, as Cunningham tells us, carried off the statues from Jamalgarhion twelve camels, to those ' irresponsible diggings,' the ravages of which in the recently opened district of Swat, Sir H. Deane so justly deplores." 3 Of the earlier official excavations, the worst thing is that they were so unsystematically carried on that it is impossible to ascertain where hundreds of the sculptures now in the Lahor Museum came from, and in almost no instance can the position of any one piece of sculpture be fixed with anything like certainty. 4 1 Quite recently the splendid collection of Mr. M. L. Dames, has also gone to Berlin, because the British Museum would not, or could not, purchase it. 2 As an example of how such remains were too often treated, we learn that in 1896 the contractors of the Military Works Department, to obtain readily stones for a culvert near Chakdarra, destroyed a little vihara of great archaeo- logical interest. Foucher, ' L'Art Greco- Bouddhique du Gandhara,' tome i. p. 108. 3 Foucher, loc. cit. tome i. p. 14 ; Cunningham, ' Archaeological Survey Report,' vol. v. p. 46; 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 1896, p. 664. M. Foucher adds: "Hardly anywhere were the excavators at the trouble to unearth the buildings to the foundations, in order to determine their plans or restore the scheme of their decoration ; their only care was to lay hands on the sculptures ; and they took no trouble to put aside or protect pieces that were thought too heavy or too fragmentary for removal. In many places, headless trunks and mutilated reliefs strew the clearings and testify to the ignorance and brutality with which the excavations were conducted, if we may use the word for it is somewhat ironical to employ that term since they were mostly left, without European supervision, to the direction of some native subaltern, or even to the discretion of the coolies of the nearest village." 4 The mode in which the excavations were conducted by Government was to send out a party of sappers in the cold weather to dig, but the officer in charge of the party was the subaltern who happened to be in command of the com- pany at the time. A new officer was consequently appointed every year, and no one was ever selected because he had any experience in such matters or any taste for such pursuits ; and the result was, as might be expected, painfully disappointing.