198 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



stones, and branches of trees, completely burying her off- 

 spring beneath them.* 



Elephants figure in a legend of St. Thomas, represented 

 to have carried the Gospel into India. To his activity was 

 believed to be due the name St. Thomas, given to a province 

 on the Coromandel Coast. At the time the apostle was in 

 this region an immense tree had fallen across the river at 

 Meliapur, interrupting river traffic. To remove the obstruc- 

 tion, the king ordered that ropes should be wound around it 

 and then attached to three hundred elephants. This was 

 done, and the animals were urged to exert all their strength, 

 but they were unable to pull off the enormous tree trunk. 

 The sovereign then promised a large reward to any one who 

 could suggest a means of removing it. St. Thomas, hearing 

 of this, came before the king and offered to do the work 

 unaided if the king would allow the trunk to be cut up and 

 a chapel built of the wood. The king and the Brahmans, 

 thinking this was merely a vain boast, gave their consent; 

 but St. Thomas, after attaching to the trunk the zone, or 

 girdle, he wore about his loins, was able without effort to 

 draw it out of the river. Many of the Hindoos present 

 were so much impressed by this miracle that they became 

 converts to Christianity. The Brahmans, however, seeing 

 the danger to their religion, hired assassins who put the 

 apostle to death. The legend goes on to state that the 

 descendants of these assassins were born with legs resembling 

 those of the elephant, f 



A war between Pegu and Siam, in 1568, was caused by 

 the refusal of the Siamese to sell a sacred white elephant 

 which the Peguans wished to acquire. They were willing 



*Vera descriptio regni africani quod tarn ab incolis quam ab Lusitanis Congus appelatur 

 per Philippum Pigafattam; Latin trans, by Reinius, Francofurti, 1598, p. 20; Lib. I, 

 cap, X (Pigafatta's work, pub. in Rome in 1531, was from notes of Lopez). 



fJohannis Hugonis Linschotii, "India Orientalis"; Lat. trans, by Teucrides Annseus 

 Lonicerus, Francoforti, 1599, p. 41, cap. XVII. 



