THE WHITE ELEPHANT.--VISIT TO THE SECOND KING OF SIAM.
The time that Doctor Bronson passed in the presence of the king was
utilized by the boys in a visit to the stables of the famous white
elephants of the royal palace of Bangkok.
When the Doctor was busy in the evening with his account of the
presentation to the king, Frank occupied himself in putting on paper his
experiences among the animals that are held in such reverence by the
Siamese. Fred sat by his side and gave occasional hints about the story,
and made sure that nothing they had seen was omitted.
[Illustration: A WHITE ELEPHANT WORSHIPPING THE SUN AND MOON.
(From a Chinese Drawing.)]
"Our friends," said he, "will want to know everything we can tell them
about the white elephants."
"Of course they will," Frank replied; "they don't have white elephants
in America--at any rate, our white elephants are not of the Siamese
kind."
"I don't think I ever heard of one in our country," said Fred; "and if
there ever was one there, it is news to me."
"Don't you remember," Frank responded, smiling, "that your uncle Charles
was said to have bought a white elephant a year or two ago?"
"Yes, I remember it perfectly," was the reply. "It was not a white
elephant that he bought, but only a large house. It was three times as
big as he needed; and after losing a great deal of money in repairing
it, and hiring a crowd of servants to keep it in order, he sold it for
much less than he gave. Of course, I understand that when a man has
bought something he does not need, and which involves him in a ruinous
expense, he is said to have bought a white elephant. I wonder where the
expression came from."
Just then Doctor Bronson entered the room to look for something he
needed, and the boys appealed the question to him. Both of them had
heard the allusion to "buying a white elephant," and knew its meaning.
What they now wished to find was where it originated.
The Doctor explained that it was said to be the custom in certain
Eastern countries for the king to give a white elephant to any nobleman
whom he wished to ruin. As the present came from the king, it could not
be sold or given away: the expense of keeping the animal was enormous,
as he required a great number of attendants, and consumed vast
quantities of food. In a little while the nobleman would be a beggar, as
his estate would be entirely consumed in maintaining the elephant; and
so it came to be understood that when a man received such a present, it
was a polite way of driving him into bankruptcy. "There is also a
story," said the Doctor, "of a man who drew a white elephant in a
lottery; he could not give his prize away, as nobody would accept it,
and he could not kill him, as such an act was a crime of the highest
character. It would not do to turn him loose, as he would then be
responsible for all the damage caused by the elephant; and if he kept
the beast it would soon eat him into poverty. Consequently, when a man
has something in his possession difficult to get rid of and costly to
keep, he is said to have drawn a white elephant."
The Doctor found what he wanted and retired, and the boys proceeded with
their story. With Fred's assistance, Frank wrote as follows:
"The white elephant is not white by any means. He is only a sort of
cream or flesh color; and anybody who expects him to rival the snow in
the purity of his complexion will be disappointed. But, after all, he is
not so dark as a good many men whom we call white, and so I suppose his
name is quite proper. He is very scarce, and this is one reason why he
is prized so highly.
"Siam is not the only country where the white elephant is regarded with
special honor; the animal receives great attention, and is very much
prized in Burmah and other Buddhist lands; and it is said that some of
the wars between Burmah and Siam have arisen from disputes about the
possession of white elephants. Money cannot buy them, and no king who
possessed one would dare to sell it for any price, as his people would
think he had defied the powers of Heaven, and would be sure to bring the
severest calamities upon them. Sir John Bowring says that when he came
to Siam at the head of an embassy from the Queen of England in 1855, the
king sent some presents for Her Majesty, and among them was a golden box
locked with a golden key. It was said to be more precious than all the
other presents; but it contained nothing beyond a few hairs from the
tail of the white elephant.
"The Buddhists have great reverence for anything that is white; and when
whiteness is combined with great rarity, and also with magnificence, it
is easy to see why the white elephant is above all other animals. 'It is
believed,' Sir John Bowring says, 'that Buddha, the divine emanation
from the Deity, must necessarily, in his multitudinous metamorphoses or
transmissions through all existences and through millions of æons,
delight to abide for some time in that grand incarnation of purity which
is represented by the white elephant. While the priests teach that there
is no spot in the heavens above, nor in the earth below, or the waters
under the earth, which is not visited in the peregrinations of the
divinity, they hold that his tarrying may be longer in the white
elephant than in any other abode, and that in the possession of the
sacred creature they may possess the presence of Buddha himself.'
"The white elephant is considered of equal rank with the king, and is
treated with all possible dignity; he has a stable to himself, and ten
or twelve keepers to look after his wants. The first one we saw was
standing on a platform which was being swept by a priest; and we were
told that none but priests were allowed to serve the sacred animal. He
was chained to a couple of posts, so that he could not step away from
the platform; and the interpreter told us not to go near him, as he was
not of a pleasant temper, and might hurt us. The keeper gave him a few
bananas, which he appeared quite willing to take; the fact is, the
elephant is very fond of bananas, and the wild ones in the forest will
often run considerable risk to get them. After he had swallowed the
bananas he reached for a truss of hay, but for some reason the keeper
did not think proper to let him have it. He showed some temper, and the
keeper brought him to a sense of his duty by pricking his foot with a
sharp iron till drops of blood came from it. This seemed to us a funny
way to treat a king, and we wondered how his majesty liked it.
[Illustration: WHITE MONKEY IN ELEPHANT STABLES.]
"We saw two white elephants, and each had a stable to himself, or rather
a palace. Their tusks were encircled with hoops or rings of pure gold,
and there were golden or gilded canopies above them, and ornaments of
great value in other parts of the stable. In one of the stables there
was a white monkey, and the interpreter told us that the white monkey is
an object of great veneration among the Siamese, and is kept in the
elephant stables to prevent the presence of evil spirits. The one we saw
was a very quiet and dignified monkey of a perfectly pure white; he was
above the ordinary size, and had a long tail, and they told us that he
was caught in the forests on the upper waters of the Menam River.
"When a white elephant is caught, there is great rejoicing throughout
Siam. The king and court go out to meet him as he is brought towards the
capital, and there is a grand procession with banners and music.
Meantime a house has been prepared for him, and some of the members of
the noble families of Siam are appointed to wait on him. He has
everything he can possibly want except his liberty; and when he goes to
the river to bathe he is escorted by other elephants, who are supposed
to be highly honored by admission to his presence. But, in spite of all
attentions, he sometimes takes sick and dies, and then the rejoicing is
changed to mourning. The whole nation is wrapped in deep grief, and the
funeral ceremonies are of an elaborate character. Fortunately for the
Siamese, the elephant is an animal of long life, and so they are not
often called upon to mourn the loss of one of these sacred beasts.
"After we had seen the white elephants, we went to the stables of the
common ones. There were a dozen or more of them in a shed that was quite
open to the weather on all its sides, and they had only the ground to
lie upon. They were chained up by the forefeet, and when we went to the
stable they had just been fed. Each of them had a bundle of freshly-cut
grass; and we were told that a healthy elephant consumes every day not
less than seven or eight hundred pounds of this food. These elephants
are kept for working about the palace-grounds; and their occupation at
present is in hauling timber from the bank of the river to the places
where it is wanted in the construction of a new wing to the king's
residence.
[Illustration: HOW AN ELEPHANT FEEDS.]
"We were much interested in seeing the way the elephant eats.
"Everybody has seen the trunk of an elephant, either on the animal
himself or in pictures. Did you ever know that there are more than forty
thousand muscles in this wonderful structure, and that it is powerful
enough to pull down a large tree, and at the same time sufficiently
delicate to pick up a pin? That is what Cuvier says about it, and he is
the best authority that we know of. Rennie, in his 'Natural History of
the Elephant,' says the same thing; and when we consider the uses of the
animal's trunk, and the many operations it will perform, the statement
is not at all surprising. And when we saw the elephants at the royal
palace taking their food, we could not help admiring the skill with
which they twisted the wisps of grass and thrust them into their
capacious mouths.
"One of the beasts was very good-natured, and allowed us to examine the
termination of his proboscis, as long as we did not touch it. As the
elephant's existence depends upon his trunk he is very sensitive about
it, and is constantly afraid of injuring it. They say that this is the
reason why he always elevates it in the air when there is any danger,
and that his great fear of the tiger arises from the fact that the tiger
always attempts to disable the elephant by springing on his trunk.
[Illustration]
"The trunk that we looked at had a projection that might be called a
finger, and directly opposite there was a sort of thumb. The finger was
exceedingly flexible, while the thumb was not; but they fitted to each
other so well that they could hold on to any thing even if it was very
small. Here is a picture of it.
[Illustration]
"And here are some more pictures, showing how the elephant pulls up the
grass when he is feeding in the open air, and also how he grasps it
before he thrusts it into his mouth. Then you can see how he takes hold
of a carrot, or any other root, and how he seizes a branch of a tree
that requires him to exercise a part of his great strength. In the
latter case he twines his trunk around the branch, and if he is pulling
it down from the tree he raises himself on his hind legs, and lets his
weight hang by his trunk. In this way he can bring down a good-sized
branch without much trouble; and as he feeds on the leaves and small
limbs in the forest where he lives, his power is very useful to him.
[Illustration: ELEPHANTS DRINKING.]
"When he has seized anything with his proboscis, his next effort is to
carry it to his mouth. This he does by bending his trunk, just as a man
bends his finger; and when he has it properly bent he thrusts the
article between his jaws, and has it all safe and secure. He drinks by
drawing the trunk full of water, and then thrusting it to his mouth; it
is sometimes thought that he draws water through the trunk directly into
his stomach, but such is not the case. He breathes through the trunk,
but he cannot take food or drink through it, as it only communicates
with his lungs. Here is the way he supplies himself.
"There used to be a question among the boys at school, 'Why do white
sheep eat more hay than black ones?' The answer was, 'Because there are
more of them.' That may be all right for sheep; but if you apply the
question to elephants, you are obliged to reverse it, as there are very
few white elephants, and any number of black ones."
By the time the above account was finished it was after eleven o'clock.
Labor was suspended, and the boys went to bed. In the morning they had a
short time to spare before breakfast, and Fred thought he would write a
description of his sleeping-room and its peculiarities, and send it
along with the story of the visit to the palace. So he took pen and
paper, and wrote as follows:
[Illustration: FRED'S TORMENTOR.]
"The weather is so warm here that we don't need any bed-clothing, and
consequently they don't give us any; we have hard beds with harder
pillows, and they are much better than any soft beds and pillows could
possibly be. A sheet to lie on is spread over the bed, and all the
covering we need is the pajamas, or sleeping suits that everybody wears
here. Mosquitoes are abundant, and of all sizes; and so they cover the
beds with a netting of very fine mesh to keep out the smallest of these
troublesome pests. The nets not only keep out the mosquitoes but they
keep in the heat, and for this reason we suffer a great deal from the
high temperature. I get up several times in the night, and go and sit on
the balcony, just to get a little cool; every time I wake I am in a
profuse perspiration, and it is largely caused by the closeness of the
air under the mosquito netting.
"When we first came here we were disturbed frequently by the _gecko_, a
lizard that climbs around the walls and partitions of the houses, and
goes wherever he pleases. He is five or six inches long, and not pretty
to look at, and he makes a noise like some one calling out 'Gecko!' It
is from his call that he gets his name, and until we got used to it we
were waked by it. It isn't pleasant to see these lizards climbing around
your room; but everybody says they are perfectly harmless, and they eat
up a great many insects. There is a smaller lizard that eats mosquitoes,
or anything else he can manage, and it is very funny to see him at work.
Frank and I watched one the other evening for half an hour, and saw him
do a great deal of good. He is just the color of the boards where he
clings, or very nearly so, and therefore he is not easily seen. When a
mosquito passed within half an inch of his nose he darted out his long
flexible tongue with the rapidity of lightning, and caught his prize on
the end of it. The mosquito disappeared like a flash, and then the
lizard watched for another, and took him in the same way.
"When a mosquito or a fly lighted two or three inches away, the lizard
would creep along like a cat, and hug close to the boards. He did it
very slowly till he got within reach, and then out came the tongue as
before, and he rarely missed his aim. One large fly was too much for
him, and after getting him on the end of his tongue he had a sharp
struggle to swallow him. The fly escaped, and after that the lizard was
more cautious about the size of his game."
Breakfast was announced, and the story of the Siamese lizard was dropped
for the present.
While they were at breakfast a messenger came from the consul to Doctor
Bronson. He announced that the second king of Siam would receive them
that afternoon, as they had been received the day before by the supreme
king.
The boys had heard that Siam was ruled by two kings, and the Doctor took
the opportunity to explain the relations between these rulers.
"The king at the grand palace, where we went yesterday," said Doctor
Bronson, "is the first or supreme king of the country. The second king
occupies a position that is difficult to understand clearly when we
compare it with our own form of government. He is not like our
Vice-president of the United States, as he does not inherit the throne
on the death of the supreme king; nor does he resemble the ancient
Mikado of Japan in being a spiritual ruler, while the first king is a
temporal one. According to Sir John Bowring, his opinion and sanction
are sought by the king in important matters, and his name is associated
in treaties. He is supposed to have control of one-third of the
revenues, and has a portion of the army under his command; in time of
war he is expected to have direct control of the armies in the field,
and to go with them in person, but this is not always the case.
Occasionally the office of second king is abolished, and it seems to be
largely in the power of the first king to do what he pleases concerning
the rank and authority of his subordinate.
"The second king has a palace nearly as large as that of the first, and
he has ministers corresponding to those that form the highest cabinet.
The same respect is shown to him when he goes abroad as to the first
king, and the latter is the only personage in the country to whom the
second king must pay visits of ceremony. Siam is the only country in the
world that has this arrangement for dividing the royal power, and when
we come to examine it closely it will be found that there is not a very
large division, after all. Not long ago, as I am told, there was a
quarrel between the first and second kings of Siam, which resulted in
the second king seeking the protection of the English consul. Since that
time the power of the second king has been less than it was before, and
the breach between the two great heads of the kingdom of Siam has not
been entirely healed."
At the appointed time the consul called for the Doctor, and the two
gentlemen proceeded on their excursion, leaving the boys at the hotel.
The journey to the palace was not made in a boat, as on the day before,
but in a carriage, for the reason that going in a boat would necessitate
a long walk from the landing to the gates of the royal residence. On his
return the Doctor gave the following account of his visit:
"We drove through a narrow gate-way where some soldiers were on guard,
and soon found ourselves in an open court-yard of the palace. Here we
left the carriage, and entered a large anteroom at the head of a flight
of stairs, where we waited while a messenger went to inform the king of
our arrival. He came back shortly, accompanied by a gentleman who spoke
English and Siamese with equal fluency, as he is the son of an American
missionary, and was born in Siam. Under his guidance we went to the
reception-hall, which was in a large building just off the court-yard.
It was entered directly from the open air, and not by passing through a
series of halls, as in the palace of the first king. His majesty rose as
we entered, and came forward a few steps to meet us; he first shook
hands with the consul, and then with me after the consul had introduced
me, and the interpreter had translated his remarks.
"The king asked us to be seated, and gave us the example by taking a
chair for himself, and indicating the ones we were to occupy. He is a
man of about fifty-five or sixty years old, and has a pleasant and
intelligent face; he speaks English with considerable fluency, and has
read a great deal about England and America. He is a great admirer of
America, and is proud of the name of George Washington, which he bears."
"Are we to understand," Frank asked, "that the second king of Siam is
named George Washington?"
"Hardly as much as that," was the Doctor's reply; "he was known among
the foreign residents of Bangkok by the name of Prince George before he
was proclaimed second king. He has at least half a dozen Siamese titles,
and places the name of 'George Washington' before them. He assumed it
himself, as I am informed, with the consent of the old King of Siam,
because he admired the character of the man whom we hold in such great
reverence in America. He has been, and continues to be, a pretty close
student of science, politics, and other matters, and is a man of more
than ordinary intelligence.
"Soon after we were seated, coffee and cigars were brought, and the king
offered us some of the latter from his own box of massive gold.
Conversation began immediately; the questions and answers being rather
slow, as they were made through the interpreter. The king asked when I
left America, and what I thought of Siam; and when I spoke in praise of
his country he appeared greatly pleased. Then we talked about the
scenery of the tropics in comparison with that of the temperate zone;
and the king said he was sorry America was so far off, as it would give
him great pleasure to visit it. Then we talked about the fruits and
flowers of Siam, the many varieties of the palm-tree, and the great uses
of the palm and bamboo to mankind. Then the king asked about some of the
productions of America; and after that there came a pause, which gave us
an opportunity to rise and make our adieux. The king shook hands with us
at parting, and hoped I would like my stay in Siam so well that I would
come here again. We found our carriage, and drove home again; but,
before leaving the palace, we went to see an elephant which belongs to
the second king, and is said to be over a hundred years old. It has been
a long time in captivity, and is very large and powerful, and its temper
is anything but amiable."
[Illustration: THE SECOND KING OF SIAM, IN STATE ROBES.]
Fred asked if the king wore his state-dress as it was represented in the
pictures he had seen of his majesty.
The Doctor answered that the king was plainly dressed, and the only
indications of rank about his garments were some stars embroidered on
the collar of his coat. The coat was short, and rather in form like a
jacket; it hung loosely, and by no means concealed a vest of white linen
that joined with trousers of Siamese pattern, to complete the clothing
of royalty. On his feet he wore a pair of embroidered shoes that were
cut low enough for slippers, and could be easily thrown off without the
aid of a boot-jack. His attendants were in Siamese garb, and the general
surroundings of the place were more Oriental in their character than
those of the palace of the supreme king.
Frank and Fred listened with great interest to what the Doctor had to
say of his visit to the second king of Siam. Through fear of forgetting
some portion of it, they proceeded to put it upon paper at once; and, as
the afternoon was far gone when they began, they had sufficient
occupation for the rest of the day.