And perhaps it may be well to state why the white elephant is so specially reverenced. “It is because it is believed that Buddha, the supreme emanation from the Deity, will necessarily, in his multitudinous metamorphoses or transmissions through all the grades of existences, and through millions of æons, delight to abide for some time in that grand incarnation of purity which is represented by, and found in the white elephant. While all the _bonzes_ teach that there is no spot in the heavens above or the earth below, or the waters under the earth, which is not visited in the peregrinations of the divinity--whose every stage or step is toward purification--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. It is known that the Ceylonese have been kept in subjection by the belief that their rulers have a tooth of Buddha in the temple of Kandy, and that on various tracts of the East impressions of the foot of Buddha are reverenced, and are the objects of weary pilgrimages to places which can only be reached with difficulty; but with the white elephant some vague notions of a vital Buddha are associated, and there can be no doubt that the marvelous sagacity of the creature has served to strengthen their religious prejudices. Siamese are known to whisper their secrets into an elephant’s ear, and to ask a solution of their perplexities by some sign or movement. And most assuredly there is more sense and reason in the worship of an intelligent beast than in that of stocks and stones, the work of men’s hands. [Illustration: SIAMESE WORSHIPING THE WHITE ELEPHANT.] [Illustration: TOMB OF A BUDDHIST SAINT.]