Queen Victoria has, I believe, not yet received the order; but she is not unacquainted with the veneration entertained by the Siamese for the animal, as the following will show. Some years ago she sent an embassy to the kingdom of Siam, consisting of several noblemen and officers of rank, to conduct some diplomatic business; and, according to custom, they carried some valuable presents to the king. Upon their return, the latter, not wishing to be outdone by the Queen, delivered to Sir John Bowring a gold box locked with a gold key, containing the most valuable gift he could devise. Sir John, naturally thinking it a gem, perhaps of great price, bore it carefully from Siam to England, and personally presented it to her Majesty. Doubtless there was some curiosity in the royal mind to know what was so precious as to require a solid gold box and key; but it was not a gem,—though it may have been in the eyes of the Siamese monarch,—and was simply a few hairs taken from the king’s white elephant! A Siamese ambassador, during a visit to London, thus referred to Queen Victoria in language intended to be highly flattering: “One cannot but be struck with the aspect of the august Queen of England, or fail to observe that she must be of pure descent from a race of goodly and warlike kings and rulers of the earth, in that her eyes, complexion, and, above all, her bearing, are those of a beautiful and majestic white elephant.” As these pink-splashed elephants are so esteemed, it is not to be wondered at that there is constant search for them in the jungle; and the fortune of him is made who discovers one. They are, however, comparatively rare; and in thirteen hundred and fifty-two years, between A.D. 515 and 1867, only twenty-four were captured, making about one in every fifty-six years. The last one was captured in 1885, and was conducted to the court of the King of Siam by His Royal Highness Somdetch Chowf Mahamalah Bamrahp Parapako, amid much parade. His Majesty accepted it, and made the fortunate finder, a poor native, a present of a sum of money, as well as his mother and son. The Siamese officials who brought the elephant to Bangkok, were honored with an audience by His Majesty, and also given valuable presents.