In the strange providence of God, whose kingdom ruleth over all, one of these terrible creatures once became the means of salvation to a Chinese fisherman in Siam, and through him of founding in a distant and important town a native church which now has many Chinese communicants. He was wading in the shallows at the head of the Gulf of Siam, collecting shellfish, when what he supposed was a log drifting toward him proved to be a huge crocodile, which attacked him fiercely, biting off his hand, so that it only hung by the tendons of the wrist. At his cries for help his comrades came and drove the creature away. Mortification set in, which would have ended in death had he not sought the missionary physician in Bangkok. My husband amputated the arm, the stump healed kindly, and when, at the end of the month, he left the mission hospital to return home, his gratitude and trust in those whose Christian kindness and care had saved his life led him to say that _their_ God, of whom they had told him, should henceforth be _his_ God. From that time he gave up the worship of idols and refused to work on the Christian Sabbath. As he spoke only the dialect used by the brethren of the American Baptist mission, who are laboring among the Chinese of Siam, he was referred to them for further instruction, and was soon baptized. He invited the missionaries and native assistant to make his house at Bangplasoi a preaching-station. Some of his relatives and others were converted, a mission-chapel was built (largely with his assistance), and now there are there several hundred Chinese converts from heathenism, and Bangplasoi is an important mission-station among the Chinese. ELEPHANTS. Having lived twenty years in “The Land of the White Elephant,” whose king has for one of his titles “The Lord of the White Elephant,” and whose flag is a white elephant on a red ground, having often ridden on elephants, and my husband having twice narrowly escaped with his life when traveling with them, once having been badly gored by one,――I may be permitted to say something not only of the white elephant, but of his less-esteemed relatives of a darker complexion. [Illustration: ELEPHANTS AT HOME.] Elephants are found in great numbers and perfection in Siam and the Laos country at the north. Our missionaries at Cheung Mai, the capital city of the Laos, tell us they not unfrequently see hundreds pass in a single day, and when a prince leaves home he is accompanied by a train of two or three hundred. They sometimes attain to the height of ten or eleven feet, but whatever their height may be, it is a fact, which we have often proved by actual measurement, that it never exceeds twice the circumference of the foot. They are very long-lived, sometimes living one hundred and fifty years or more. They are used as beasts of burden and in war, for dragging timber from the forests and for traveling, and their tusks, it is well known, are a valuable article of commerce.