On the other hand, Vincent states that the white elephant has been happily termed the Apis of the Buddhists. “It is held to be sacred by all the Indo-Chinese nations except the Annamese. It is revered as a god while living, and its death is regarded as a national calamity.... Even at the present day the white elephant is worshipped by the lower classes; but by the king and nobles it is revered and valued not so much for its divine character, being the abode of a transmigrating Buddha, as because it is believed to bring prosperity to the court in peace, and good fortune in war. The more there are of them, the more grand and powerful the state is supposed to be.” From this somewhat conflicting statement, we may infer that the white elephant was formerly worshipped; but, at the present day, the estimate that I have given may be applied. The association of the white elephant with the religious sects of India is well known; but how much it was reverenced from the association, it is impossible to tell. Sir John Bowring gives the following reasons for believing that the animal was held sacred, principally, “because it is believed that Buddha, the divine emanation from the Deity, must necessarily, in his multitudinous metamorphoses, or transmissions through all existences, and through millions of æons, delight to abide for some time in that grand incarnation of purity which is represented by the white elephant.” While 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 towards 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 creatures, they may possess the presence of Buddha himself. It is known that the Singhalese 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 marvellous 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: PLATE XI. THE WHITE ELEPHANT, TOUNG TALOUNG. _Property of Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson._ _Page 117._]