"Some curious stories are told by La Loubère of the sagacity of elephants, as reported by the Siamese. In one case an elephant, upon whose head his keeper had cracked a cocoanut, kept the fragments of the nut-shell for several days between his forelegs, and having found an opportunity of trampling on and killing the keeper, the elephant deposited the fragments upon the dead body.
"I heard many instances of sagacity which might furnish interesting anecdotes for the zoölogist. The elephants are undoubtedly proud of their gorgeous trappings, and of the attentions they receive. I was assured that the removal of the gold and silver rings from their tusks was resented by the elephants as an indignity, and that they exhibited great satisfaction at their restoration. The transfer of an elephant from a better to a worse stabling is said to be accompanied with marks of displeasure."
If the elephant is in Siam the king of beasts, the white elephant is the king of elephants. This famous animal is simply an albino, and owes his celebrity and sanctity to the accident of disease. He is not really white (except in spots); his color is a faded pink, or, as Bowring states of the specimen he saw, a light mahogany. In September, 1870, however, a very extraordinary elephant arrived in Bangkok, having been escorted from Paknam with many royal honors. A large part of the body of this animal was really white, and great excitement and delight was produced by its arrival at the capital. The elephant which Bowring saw and described died within a year after his visit. She occupied a large apartment within the grounds of the first king's palace, and not far off, in an elevated position, was placed a golden chair for the king to occupy when he should come to visit her. "She had a number of attendants, who were feeding her with fresh grass (which I thought she treated somewhat disdainfully), sugar-cane, and plantains. She was richly caparisoned in cloth of gold and ornaments, some of which she tore away and was chastised for the offence by a blow on the proboscis by one of the keepers. She was fastened to an upright pole by ropes covered with scarlet cloth, but at night was released, had the liberty of the room, and slept against a matted and ornamented partition, sloping from the floor at about an angle of forty-five degrees. In a corner of the room was a caged monkey, of pure white, but seemingly very active and mischievous. The prince fed the elephant with sugar-cane, which appeared her favorite food; the grass she seemed disposed to toss about rather than to eat. She had been trained to make a salaam by lifting her proboscis over the neck, and did so more than once at the prince's bidding. The king sent me the bristles of the tail of the last white elephant to look at. They were fixed in a gold handle, such as ladies use for their nosegays at balls."