A While Elephant. 



-o 



elephant an object of wonder to Asiatics. The rarity of 

 the latter is accounted for by regarding this pecuUar 

 appearance as the result of albinism ; and notwithstand- 

 ing the exaggeration of Oriental historians, who compare 

 the fairness of such creatures to the whiteness of snow, 

 even in its utmost perfection, I apprehend that the tint 

 of a white elephant is little else than a flesh-colour, 

 rendered somewhat more conspicuous by the blanching 

 of the skin, and the lightness of the colourless hairs with 

 which it is sparsely covered. A white elephant is men- 

 tioned in the Mahawanso as forming part of the retinue 

 attached to the "' Temple of the Tooth " at Anarajapoora, 

 in the fifth century after Christ ; ^ but it commanded no 

 religious veneration, and like those in the stud of the 

 kings of Siam, it was tended merely as an emblem of 

 royalty ; ^ the sovereign of Ceylon being addressed as 

 the " Lord of Elephants." ^ At the same time it admits 

 of no doubt that in the early ages, white animals were in 

 some parts of the East the objects of devout adoration. 

 Herodotus alludes to the sacred white horses, 'upwv 

 'iTnrvjy tu)}' \evKu>y, which accompanied the army of Cyrus 

 to the siege of Babylon ; * he equally records that 

 amongst the Egyptians purely white oxen were sacred to 

 Epaphus ; but one single dark hair was enough to exclude 

 them as unclean. '"' 



In 1633 a white elephant was exhibited in Holland ; ° 



' Mahatvaaso, ch. xxxviii. p. 254, middle ages, bore the style of Gaja- 



A. D. 433. /rti'/, "powerful in elephants." [Asiat. 



^ Pallegoix, Slant, etc. vol. i. p. Res. xv. 253.) 



152. * Herod. 1. i. c. 189. 



^ Mahawanso, ch. xviii. p. in. The '" Ibid. 1. ii. c. 38. 



Hindu sovereigns of Orissa, in the *= Armandi, Hist. Milit. des Ele- 



