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For a company that governs 100,000,000 of people, maintains armies, and makes war with the greatest Asiatic powers, this is but an humble and unpretending edifice. It was erected by R. Jupp, architect, in 1800, just 200 years after the first incorporation of this extraordinary Company, and has been since enlarged at various times. Its front, though belonging to a very hackneyed class, a mere portico with wings, is one of the best of its kind; but cannot be appreciated, from the narrowness of the street, and the northern aspect-a disadvantage that seems by a sort of fatality to attend all our best architecture. It is much to be regretted that the exteriors of buildings should no longer be designed, as formerly, with some reference to the aspect and other circumstances of the site. The pediment was sculptured by the younger Bacon, and represents, in the centre, Britannia and Liberty, to whom, from the east side, Mercury and Navigation are introducing Asia. On the other side appear Order, Justice, Religion, Integrity, and Industry. The recumbent figures in the extreme angles are the

Ganges and the Thames; the finials over them, Asia and Europe; and that on the apex, Britannia. The building contains a museum of eastern curiosities, which is open to the public every Saturday from 11 to 3 o'clock; and to those who obtain a director's order, on Mondays and Thursdays also; but is closed during the month of October. It contains some remarkable works of rude art and industry, as Chinese ivory carvings, Brahman and Buddhist idols and mytholo gical paintings, armor, and trophies. Tippoo's organ, representing a tiger devouring a European, is very curious. The music, produced on turning the handle, consists of shrieks from the man, after every four of which comes a growl from the beast. In fine contrast with this truly barbaric piece of royal furniture is a specimen of Roman art found under the site of the present building, and representing, curiously enough, (in tessellated work,) a female riding on a tiger. There are also here a collection of fossils, a very rich library of Oriental MSS, and several portraits and statues of the most eminent servants of the Company.

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The British Museum originated with a bequest from Sir Hans Sloane, a most industrious naturalist, of whose history the following sketch may not be unacceptable to our readers. Born in the north of Ireland, but of Scottish family, young Sloane showed an early love of natural history and medicine, and was carefully educated accordingly. At 16 years of age he was attacked by spitting of blood, which dangerous symptom caused him permanently to adopt a strict regimen, and to abstain from the use of all stimulating liquors. Continuing this course ever afterwards, he not only enjoyed a fair proportion of health, but lived to an unusual age. After many years of diligent study, he settled in London as a physician, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society; but in three years we find him embarking for Jamaica as physician to the duke of Albemarle, governor of that island. Owing to the death of the duke, he was only fifteen months in Jamaica, but he managed to accumulate a vast number of specimens in natural history, which afterwards formed the nucleus of the museum, on which he spent large sums of money, enriching it in every possible way. He was appointed physician to Christ's Hospital, but never retained his salary, always devoting it to charity. In 1716 he was created a baronet by George I., and in 1727 he became physician in ordinary to George II. In the same year he attained the highest honor a scientific man could receive in being appointed to succeed the great Newton in the chair of the Royal Society. He exercised the duties of this office with the greatest zeal until he arrived at the age of fourscore,

when he resigned it, and retired altogether from public life. At his own manor-house at Chelsea he lived on to the great age of 93, when a brief illness terminated his life in the year 1753. He bequeathed his museum to the public on condition that 20,0007. should be paid to his family, the first cost of the whole having amounted to at least 50,000l. His books and manuscripts were included in this bequest, the former consisting of 50,000 volumes. The conditions offered by Sir Hans Sloane were responded to by parliament, and his museum became the property of the nation.

The buildings have been altered from time to time; the present is the work of Sir Robert Smirke, and the massive portico, of which the engraving gives a view, was finished as late as 1847.

It is needless to speak of the vast collection in these halls, of books, and curiosities,-a catalogue of which, makes almost a library.

From Dickens' "Household Words,"

ELEPHANTS, WHOLESALE AND
RETAIL.

THE circumstances which have been instrumental in bringing about the voyage of Bibi Sahibeh and her infant daughter to England, and which have enabled us to enjoy the favor of their presence at this time in the Zoological Gardens of the Regent's park, are not only interesting in themselves, but have led us into a train of elephantine reflections, at once historical,

military, artistic, social, and, in some degree, | sentimental. Previous to speaking of Bibi Sahibeh, we will request permission to give a cursory view of her great family from a very early period of time, being the substance of a conversazione held in the vestibule of her apartments at the Gardens, the other morning, at which half the beauty and | learning of the metropolis were present. Professor Owen took notes, while Lord Brougham attended to the ladies.

There are several obvious reasons for designating the family of the Elephant as 'great." The grandeur and state pomp of the mightiest Oriental kings, the enormity of whose magnificence sometimes reads like a fabulous wonder, seems almost inseparable from the early history of elephants. On all great occasions, and the assemblage of multitudes, the lofty and sagacious double forehead, with the quiet small eyes, enormous flaps of ears, and ever-varying attitude of "proboscis lithe," constitutes one of the most imposing figures of the majestic scene and its countless concourse. In the most ancient Sanscrit poems there are records of tame elephants in processions, a thousand years before the Christian era. We do not allude only to great state occasions, or to warlike processions, but even to religious ceremonies, since the elephant is found to occupy a post of extraordinary honor in the remotest records of the mythology of India. One of their most alarming deities rides upon his back; while the idol which is their symbol for wisdom and science, bears the form of a man (rather eccentric in his proportions) with the head of an elephant. Malcolm, in his" History of Persia," tells us that a few miles from the modern city of Kermanshah, the excavations of the rock display many finely carved figures, and that the sides of some of the caves are covered with sculpture representing the hunting of wild boars along the banks of a river, by men mounted on elephants, while others, in boats, are ready to attack the game when it takes to the water. The hunting of deer by men mounted on elephants, was also represented in one of their carvings. Considering the relative speed of these two quadrupeds, at least in modern times, we cannot help regarding this either as a "symbol," or a very heavy jest. The ancient Chinese rep resented the earth as borne upon the backs

of eight elephants, whose heads were turned to the principal points of the compass. The same animal is a favorite figure of speech in their poetry. In Eastern architecture the elephant is likewise a very important personage at the gates of temples, on the walls of palaces, on the sides of tombs and pagodas, and in subterranean temples like those of Ellora and Mawalipouram. Even to the present time the Hindoos, on great occasions, select these creatures to bear the images of their gods, and we find them loaded with the most valuable ornaments in the mystic processions of Brahma and Vishnoo. The use of elephants is absolutely prohibited in the modern capital of Siam, excepting to personages of very high rank; and, in a portion of the Celestial Empire, the chief minister for the foreign department—the Palmerston of Cochin China-is expressly designated as "the Mandarin of Elephants.” This title appeared to give extreme satisfaction to Lord Brougham, who thought that we ought to have something equivalent to it for certain learned men in England.

We had rather be silent (and yet we dare not quite pass it over) on the subject of white elephants; for although the banner of the kingdom of Siam is a white elephant on a crimson ground, and every body knows that he is an object of veneration by many eastern nations, and of worship by some, yet there certainly does exist a “blot in the scutcheon," a mysterious and ugly fact about him-in fact, a "family secret,” of a kind that militates very potently against the personal interest we northern people might otherwise take in his history. We know very well that Bibi Sahibeh would not acknowledge the relationship. The value set upon these varieties, however, is extraordinary, while the dignities heaped upon them have been quite preposterous. The King of Siam once had the astonishing good fortune, as he considered it, to possess no less than six of these wonders of the earth. They had apartments in the inner inclosure of the palace, close to those of his Siamese Majesty. Each one had his own especial range of building, and a suite of ten servants to minister to all his wants and fancies. Their dinner, generally consisting of fresh grass and sliced sugar cane, with bunches of bananas enwreathed with flowers, was always set out on a large white

table-cloth, which was spread in a shady court, near a marble fountain. Their tusks were ornamented with gold rings or bracelets, their heads were covered with a network of chain, and on their backs was laid a small embroidered cushion-not, be it noted, for any body to sit upon, but as a hint that no body should ever presume to think of such a thing. The King of Siam, himself, was no exception to this; and a certain learned Jesuit, in writing of this country, informs us that every white elephant has the rank or title of a king, that he is called "the Pure King," and "the Wonderful King," and that his majesty of Siam did not ride upon one of them, "because the white elephant was as great a king as himself.” The discoverer of one of these royal personages is accounted a most fortunate individual, and this is proved in result, as the sovereign of Siam rewards him with the distinction of a crown made of silver; he and his family, to the third generation, are exempt from all servitude and taxation, and a grant of land is made to him of the extent to which the cry of the elephant can be heard by the finest cars. The subject, however, can never be mentioned in the hearing of Bibi Sahibeh.

We have hinted at a certain drawback, in our imagination, at least, to all these dignities-a certain " 'family secret." It is this. The white elephant is a leper; his whiteness is a disease of an hereditary kind, or, at best, he is an albino. He is white only comparatively, his real color being rather of a pale fleshy tinge, and the hair of a yellowish or tawny hue. Albinoes, how ever, of various kinds are peculiar to Siam, where there often appears an albino buffalo, sometimes an albino deer, more rarely an albino monkey, and once there was seen-oh, rare and enviable monstrosity! oh, novel form of the "Pure King" and the "Wonderful King!"—an albino dolphin! It was brought from the Sechang, or Dutch Islands, and had tank apartments immediately fitted up for it in the palace.

Among the various hyperbolical statements involved in the most remote records and histories of Oriental monarchs, nothing strikes us more forcibly than the accounts given of the numbers of elephants they possessed. The best authorities, moreover, often differ widely. In the battle, for instance, between Porus and Alexander, on the banks of the Hydaspes, the former is said to have ranged eighty-five elephants in his lines;-by another Latin historian, one hundred and thirty;-by another, two hundred. After the defeat of Porus, the Gangarides and Prasians, who marched against Alexander, were accompanied, according to Plutarch, by six thousand elephants;— according to Diodorus Siculus, by four thousand; and according to Quintus Curtius, by three thousand. After this, we may be excused for doubting Pliny, when he tells us that the sovereign of Palibothra possessed nine thousand elephants of war; while we have no doubt whatever as to how we should receive the monstrous assertion of Ælian, when he gravely informs us that a certain king of India "took the field" with a train of one hundred thousand elephants. Took the "field," indeed!why, the provender they would require for a single week would require the king to "take" half the fields of the East along with him for their sustenance, We know what one elephant can eat, and it has thence been calculated that one hundred elephants would consume nearly ten tons of grass and vegetables in a single day! The Chinese, who make a point of beating every nation at numbers, designate Lanchang, the capital of Lao, as "the province of ten millions of elephants." Historians of later times are disposed to be far more moderate, as we hear of Mahmoud of Guznee possessing thirteen hundred elephants of war, while the number awarded to the magnificent and luxurious Khosroo Purveez, Sultan of Persia, is placed at the yet more modest figure of twelve hundred.

that Khosroo's harem contained twelve thousand beautiful ladies, and that the royal stables held fifty thousand horses.

The Persian historian, however, "makes Professor Owen was here heard to ex-up" for his forbearance, by informing us press his regret that he had not known the King of Siam, as he could have put him in the way of obtaining half-a-dozen from the same source. The Sechang fishermen were rogues, and made too much of the thing, which was not rare in the Dutch Islands.

A very interesting work was published in France, some years ago, entitled "Histoire Militaire des Eléphans," &c.; being the

that it was far more dangerous to run away than to advance to the attack.

military history of elephants from the most remote times to the introduction of fire-arms. It is by the Chevalier Armandi, formerly a colonel of artillery under Napoleon. From this book, and from an article that appeared in a number of the "Foreign and Colonial Quarterly" for 1843, we have derived much information and amusement on the employ-insides of his great ears scarlet-though

ment of elephants in the magnificent scenes of Oriental warfare in remote periods.

The earliest account, which may be considered worthy to be regarded as history, of the employment of elephants as part of an army, is that which is given of the battle of Arbela (331 B.C.) when Darius ranged fifteen of them in front of the centre of his grand line. He does not appear to have done much with them, as nothing is said on the point. They fell into the hands of the conqueror, Alexander, to whom a present was made of twelve more; but this great general was too wise to make use of them in his battle against Porus, as he had already perceived that they might prove very dangerous allies, if driven back mad with wounds and terror among the "serried ranks." Very soon, however, they were put to use systematically; and gradually, by regular training, became very formidable. There were few wars in which the Romans were engaged, during the three hundred years that intervened between the time of Alexander the Great and Cæsar, in which these animals were not employed. Not withstanding their military education, however, it must be admitted that the best fighting elephants not unfrequently caused their masters to lose the day, by their insubordinate and disorderly conduct. Some of their exercises were very curious, and often equally laughable. Scipio, having received some trained elephants from Juba, found they were not yet sufficiently to be relied upon; he therefore devised the following new exercise for them:-Ranging them in a single line, he placed opposite to them a troop of slingers, who, on a sudden, threw stones at them, amidst cries and shouts. The elephants soon wheeled about, and were in the act of retreating, when they were suddenly met from behind by another body of slingers, who uttered shouts twice as loud-cries doubly piercing-and who cast rough sharp stones, of five times the weight of the former; thus teaching the elephants

It was thought that the color of scarlet had an effect upon the imagination of an elephant, and made him fierce; for this reason, and also to render him a more ter rific object in battle, they often painted the

sometimes blue, or white; and, as it is his habit, when enraged, to raise his ears and flap them up and down, there is no doubt but his sudden appearance among a group, in the confusion of a battle, must have had rather a striking effect, more particularly if he was drunk, to produce which stimu lating drugs were frequently administered before he went into action. This latter preparation is very poetically rendered, not to say a little disguised by the elegance of the wording in Maccabees, chapter vi, verse 34:-" And to the end that they might provoke the elephants to fight, they showed them the blood of grapes and mulberries."

Colonel Miles, "a learned soldier from the East," who was present at the conversazione, assured the company that it was a common thing to make the animals mad drunk by wine, and also by drugs.

Of the tower which was fixed upon the back of the elephant, and filled with armed men, our impressions are chiefly derived from ancient medals and coins, pictures, bas-reliefs, and the writings of poets; but the very form of these towers appears to be involved in some doubt, and historians differ widely as to the number of men they contained. In the book of Maccabees it is said—” And upon the beasts there were strong towers of wood, which covered every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there were also upon every one, two-andthirty strong men, that fought upon them, beside the Indian that ruled them." Surely there must be a mistake here in the numbers as they would have no room to move a limb. We have seen old prints, in which the tower was absolutely crowded with about a dozen archers and spearmen, proving thereby the utter impracticability of such a number having been employed. According to Heliodorus, the number was six; while Livy says there were only four soldiers, beside the man who acted as conductor; and in the authenticity of this latter number Bibi Sahibeh coincides. Livy is the man

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