f real white hairs on the back. All
three animals were, in reality, albinos, having the light-colored iris
of the eye, the white toe-nails, and the pink skin at the end of the
trunk which distinguish the albino everywhere. As a matter of fact,
"white elephant" is not a correct translation of the Siamese _chang
penak_, which really means "albino elephant." But most foreigners will
continue, I have no doubt, to use the term made famous by Barnum.

* * * * *

Though the albino elephants are never used nowadays save on occasions
of great ceremony, being regarded by the educated Siamese with the same
amused tolerance with which an Englishman regards the great gilt coach,
drawn by eight cream-colored horses, in which the king goes to open
Parliament, the ordinary elephant is of enormous economic value to the
country, being a combination, as it were, of a motor truck, a portable
derrick, and a freight car. Almost anywhere in the back country, where
the only roads are trails through the jungle, one can see "elephants
a-pilin' teak in the sludgy, squdgy creeks" or being loaded with
merchandise for transport into the far interior. Indeed, the traveler
who wishes to take a short cut from Siam to Burmah can hire an
elephant for the journey almost as easily as he could hire a motor car
in America. It is a novel means of travel, but a little of it goes a
long way. A good working elephant is a valuable piece of property,
being worth in the neighborhood of $2,500., but the prospective
purchaser should remember that the possession of one of these giant
pachyderms entails considerable overhead, or rather, internal expense.
De Wolf Hopper was telling only the literal truth when he sang in
_Wang_ of the tribulations of the peasant who had an elephant on his
hands:

"The elephant ate all night,
The elephant ate all day;
Do what he would to furnish food,
The cry was 'Still more hay!'"

[Illustration: An elephant hunt in Siam

A large herd of wild elephants being driven across a
river

The elephants, herded by domesticated animals, are
driven into the corral]

Although, as I have already remarked, sophisticated Siamese regard the
white elephant with amusement tinged with contempt, there is no doubt
that among the bulk of the people the animals are considered as sacred
and are treated with great veneration. Indeed, when Siam was forced to
cede certain of her eastern provinces to France,