246 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
with state carriages, and palanquins. The tum¬ 
blers appeared agile and expert; they were 
chiefly disguised as monkeys and other wild 
animals, and amused the company by ludicrous 
gestures, scrambling up poles, letting themselves 
fall from them, and similar feats. Some of the 
elephants were very noble animals; but our 
attention was chiefly attracted by the celebrated 
white elephant, which was immediately in front 
of the palace; it is the only one in the pos¬ 
session of the King of Ava, notwithstanding 
his titles ; whereas his Majesty of Siam had six 
when I was in that country. The Burman 
white elephant was rather of a cream than 
a white colour, and by no means so complete an 
Albino as any one of those shown to us in 
Siam. To the best of my recollection, how¬ 
ever, it was larger than any of the latter: it 
had no appearance of disease or debility, and 
the keepers assured us that its constitution was 
equally good with that of any of the common 
elephants. This animal was taken in the year 
1806, when young, in the forests of Pegu, at 
a place called Nibban, which is about twelve 
miles distant from the old city, and was now 
about twenty-five years old: it is the only 
white elephant which has been taken in the Bur- 
man dominions for many years, with the excep- 
