Explore "The Land of the White Elephant" by Frank R. Stockton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
This is the kingdom of Siam in Southern Asia. It has this name because the white elephant is the national emblem, and is represented on the Siamese flag, as the eagle is on the American flag.
Siam is a very pleasant country to live in, and a good many Europeans have from time to time had their homes there, so that the Siamese, who seem to be a teachable people, have learned a great deal from them, and have copied some of their ways. The missionaries, too, have done very much to improve the manners and customs of the Siamese. But still they retain many of their old customs, and the result is a queer sort of mixture-in some things the people show themselves to be manly and intelligent, and, in others, they appear very ignorant, and degraded.