Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/568

564 and his men came in sight of the Great Buddha, we paused and rested from our journey at a point near one of the gates to the walled city which lies in the valley below. As our eyes turned to the great face, which has been gilded until it shines like metal, as the immense size and

perfect preservation of the idol made their impression, the thought that came to my mind was, “How far more marvelous is this than many of the world’s boasted wonders.” I thought of the Colossi at Thebes and the Sphinx. What are they? Scarred, mined and defaced by the hand of man and the effects of time, they are scarcely recognizable as images. They are little better than lumps of battered rock. But far in the west of China sits this old Buddha, remote from the tracks of travel, unnoticed and almost unknown; yet greater in size than the Egyptian