96 Gleanings from the 



Bock, a recent traveller, was in 1880 very kindly 

 received by the King of Siam, and witnefTed the 

 proceflion of the facred white elephants. The 

 fkin of thefe fo-called white elephants he defcribes 

 as being rather a pinkifti-grey. He made a 

 coloured drawing of the lateft addition to the 

 royal ftables, with which the King was much 

 pleafed. 



A much-lauded white elephant arrived in London 

 in Jan., 1 884, but greatly difappointed moft people. 

 It was light-coloured, and fpotted on the root of the 

 trunk and over the ears. One authority looked 

 upon thefe markings as being the refult of 

 albinifm, another as being due to a difeafe known 

 as leuco derma (Prof. Flowers and Mr. B. Squires's 

 letters to the Times of that date). Confiderable 

 fandtity is attached to white elephants in the Eaft. 

 The Hindoos perhaps conned: them with Airawata, 

 the elephant of India, from whom the great river 

 Irawadi, or Iravati, derives its name, like the 

 Hydraotes, or Ravee, of the Punjaub. After a 

 fhort time this fo-called white elephant left us for 

 the Americans, a people more appreciative of fuch 

 marvels. 



The elephant does not appear in the Homeric 

 poems, but ivory is often mentioned. A celebrated 

 paflage ("Iliad," iv. 141) compares the blood on 

 Menelaus, when wounded by an arrow, to a 

 Maeonian or Carian woman ftaining ivory with 

 crimfon to be an ornament for horfes' heads, " and 

 it lies in her chamber, and many horfemen defire 

 to wear it, but it ftays as an ornament for a 



