The Siamese Twins and the Siamese White Elephants are the two objects round which many an Englishman grouped all his knowledge of "The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe" until the political troubles of the past few years drew public attention to this hitherto little known country. The elephants have given rise to a proverbial expression in England, which is a little misleading when viewed in the light of Siamese opinion. To give to a European a useless and troublesome present is known as giving him a "white elephant," but to give a Buddhist a present of a white elephant would be to give him possession of a creature which, kindly treated, would cause blessings and good fortune to fall in showers around him in this and all future existences. The white elephant has been held in great respect in many countries, and has played a great part in many legends. In Enarea, in Central Africa, elephants of this colour are reverenced. When Shahab ud-Din, in 1194, attacked and defeated Jaya Chandra of Benares, he captured from his conquered foes a white elephant which refused to make obeisance to its new master, and made a furious assault upon its driver when he attempted to coerce it into respectful behaviour. In the time of the grandfather of Mahomed, when the Christian king of Himyar advanced against Kenanah in Hijaz, to revenge the pollution of a Christian church at Sennaa, he secured his victory beforehand by going to the scene of battle upon an elephant whose skin was of the colour of milk. In Siam the representation of the white elephant is everywhere conspicuous. The national flag is "a white elephant on a scarlet ground." The mercantile flag is "a white elephant on a blue ground." On every temple and official building in the land there is a representation in stone, plaster, or colour of this wonderful creature. But the _body_ of a real white elephant has never yet been seen. The creature who bears the name is simply an elephant which is a little lighter in colour than the ordinary elephant. For the sake of convenience we shall refer to it as the "white elephant," though there is no such name for it in the native language, and though its colour is very much more like that of a dirty bath-brick. Even this distant approach to whiteness is not distributed generally all over the body, but is usually confined to a few solitary patches near the extremities. These blotches of lighter colour are not natural or hereditary. They are often the result of an eruptive affection. The irritation that accompanies the disease causes the animal to rub the affected part against the trunks of trees or other hard material, and so to destroy the epidermal surface. All so-called white elephants have, however, a few really white hairs which are not to be accounted for in this manner.