228 THE KING'S DIVINITY book iii
are
200 elephants in Siam, one of them being white ; and it is so highly
esteemed by the King that he glories in calling himself ' the King of
the white elephant 1) These elephants live for several centuries, as I
have elsewhere remarked.2
""The
second time that the King goes forth in public is for the purpose of
visiting another pagoda, 5 or 6 leagues from the town up the river. No
one can enter this pagoda save the King and his priests. As for the
people, as soon as they see the door of it each one must fall with his
face to the ground. On this occasion the King appears on the river with
200 richly gilt and decorated galleys of an enormous length, each
having 400 rowers.3 As this second sortie of the King
happens in the month of November, when the river begins to fall, the
priests make the people believe that it is the King alone who is able
to arrest the course of the waters by the prayers and offerings which
he makes in this pagoda ; and these poor people persuade themselves
that the King goes to cut the waters with his sword, to dismiss them
and order them to retire into the sea.4
The
King goes, moreover, but on this occasion without any state, to a
pagoda which is in the island where the Dutch have their factory. There
is, at the entrance, an idol seated after the manner of our tailors,
having one hand on one of
1
In the year 1821-2 the envoys from the Governor-General of India found
five white elephants in the possession of the King. Finlay-son gives an
interesting account of them {Mission to Siam, p. 154). See Sir J. Bowring, Siam, i.
220 f. ' 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 ' (E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe, 389) ; Hastings, Ency. Religion and Ethics, xi. 483. Dames, Book of Duarte Barbosa, ed. 1921, ü. 154 f.
2 See vol. i, p. 223.
3 Drawings and descriptions of these fine royal barges, called Balon (see Yule-Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 53), are given by de la Loubère, p. 40, and see Turpin, Hist, of Siam, in Pinkerton, Collection of Voyages, ix. 581 ; Young, 349 ; and compare the royal boats in the Burmese Court (Scott & Hardiman, Gazetteer Upper Burma, part i, vol. ii. 157 ff.).
4 A good instance of mimetic magic.
