white elephants; for although the banner of
the kingdom of Siam is a white elephant on a
crimson ground, and everybody knows that
he is an object of veneration by many eastern
nations, and of worship by some, yet there
certainly does exist a "blot in the scutcheon,"
a mysterious and ugly fact about him—in fact,
a "family secret," of a kind that militates
very potently against the personal interest we
northern people might otherwise take in his
history. We know very well that Bibi
Sahibeh would not acknowledge the relationship.
The value set upon these varieties,
however, is extraordinary, while the dignities
heaped upon them have been quite preposterous.
The King of Siam once had the astonishing
good fortune, as he considered it,
to possess no less than six of these wonders
of the earth. They had apartments in the
inner inclosure of the palace, close to those of
his Siamese Majesty. Each one had his own
especial range of building, and a suite of ten
servants to minister to all his wants and
fancies. Their dinner, generally consisting
of fresh grass and sliced-sugar cane, with
bunches of bannanas enwreathed with flowers,
was always set out on a large white tablecloth,
which was spread in a shady court,
near a marble fountain. Their tusks were
ornamented with gold rings or bracelets, their
heads were covered with a net-work of gold
chain, and on their backs was laid a small
embroidered cushion—not, be it noted, for
anybody to sit upon, but as a hint that nobody
should ever presume to think of such a
thing. The King of Siam, himself, was no
exception to this; and a certain learned
Jesuit, in writing of this country, informs us
that every white elephant has the rank or
title of a king, that he is called "the Pure
King," and "the Wonderful King," and that
his majesty of Siam did not ride upon one of
them, "because the white elephant was as
great a king as himself." The discoverer of
one of these royal personages is accounted a
most fortunate individual, and this is proved
in result, as the sovereign of Siam rewards
him with the distinction of a crown made of
silver; he and his family, to the third generation,
are exempt from all servitude and taxation,
and a grant of land is made to him of the
extent to which the cry of the elephant can
be heard by the finest ears. The subject,
however, can never be mentioned in the
hearing of Bibi Sahibeh.

We have hinted at a certain drawback,
in our imagination, at least, to all these
dignities—a certain "family secret." It is this.
The white elephant is a leper; his whiteness
is a disease of an hereditary kind, or, at best,
he is an albino. He is white only comparatively,
his real colour being rather of a pale
fleshy tinge, and the hair of a yellowish or
tawny hue. Albinoes, however, of various
kinds are peculiar to Siam, where there often
appears an albino buffalo, sometimes an albino
deer, more rarely an albino monkey, and once
there was seen,—oh, rare and enviable
monstrosity! oh, novel form of the "Pure King"
and the "Wonderful King! "—an albino
dolphin! It was brought from the Sechang,
or Dutch Islands, and had tank-apartments
immediately fitted up for it in the palace.

Professor Owen was here heard to express
his regret that be had not known the King of
Siam, as he could have put him in the way of
obtaining half-a-dozen from the same source.
The Sechang fishermen were rogues, and made
too much of the thing, which was not so very
rare in the neighbourhood of the Dutch
Islands.

Among the various hyperbolical statements
involved in the most remote records and
histories of Oriental monarchs, nothing strikes
us more forcibly than the accounts given of
the numbers of elephants they possessed. The
best authorities, moreover, often differ widely.
In the battle, for instance, between Porus and
Alexander, on the banks of the Hydaspes,
the former is said to have ranged eighty-five
elephants in his lines;—by another Latin
historian, one hundred and thirty;—by another,
two hundred. After the defeat of Porus, the
Gangarides and Prasians, who marched against
Alexander, were accompanied, according to
Plutarch, by six thousand elephants;—according
to Diodorus Siculus, by four thousand;
—and according to Quiutus Curtius, by three
thousand. After this, we may be excused for
doubting Pliny, when he tells us that the
sovereign of Palibothra possessed nine
thousand elephants of war; while we have no
doubt whatever as to how we should receive
the monstrous assertion of Ælian, when he
gravely informs us that a certain king of
India "took the field" with a train of one
hundred thousand elephants. Took the
"field," indeed!—why, the provender they
would require for a single week would require
the king to "take" half the fields of
the East along with him for their sustenance.
We know what one elephant can eat, and it
has thence been calculated that one hundred
elephants would consume nearly ten tons of
grass and vegetables in a single day! The
Chinese, who make a point of beating every
nation at numbers, designate Lanchang, the
capital of Lao, as "the province of ten
millions of elephants." Historians of later
times are disposed to be far more moderate,
as we hear of Mahmoud of Guznee possessing
thirteen hundred elephants of war, while
the number awarded to the magnificent and
luxurious Khosroo Purveez, Sultan of Persia,
is placed at the yet more modest figure of
twelve hundred.

The Persian historian, however, "makes
up" for this forbearance, by informing us that
Khosroo's harem contained twelve thousand
beautiful ladies, and that the royal stables
held fifty thousand horses.

A very interesting work was published in
France, some years ago, entitled, "Histoire
Militaire des Eléphans," &c.; being the