Perhaps St. Elmo's or St. Helen's fire (feu d'Héléne) is a nautical memento of Helena's Beacons.
Note 4, page 23.
With the Buddhist belief in the transmigration of souls, a rare white animal (albino), especially a white elephant, is thought to be the incarnation of a distinguished person, perhaps of a future Buddha (Enlightened One),—therefore the worship. "Merit," in the Buddhist sense, is the accumulation of good deeds to secure reward.
"Kandy's tooth" is a relic of Buddha, and the palladium of Ceylon. It is a bit of ivory, in form like a tooth, enshrined in six cases of gold and silver inlaid with precious stones, and preserved in a chamber of the temple attached to the palace of the kings, at Kandy. The "Footprint" is a print in the rock at Probat, Siam, resembling a huge human foot, and believed to be an imprint of the foot of Buddha. Over it is a beautiful shrine, and it is a place of yearly pilgrimage for the Siamese. The "Bo-tree" (Ficus religiosa) is the tree under which Gautama was sitting when he became a Buddha.
Note 5, page 25.
Mahdi is an Arabic word, meaning Leader or Guide. Moslems generally believe that the expected great Mahdi will be a descendant of the Prophet, and will appear towards the end of time to uproot wickedness and establish a reign of righteousness on earth. There have been many Mahdis in Mohammedan history.
Mohammed Achmet, "El Mahdi" of 1881 and succeeding years, was born about 1848, in Dongola. He studied religion in a village near Khartoum, and then took up his abode on an island in the White Nile, living in a cave or recess in the earth. Here he acquired a reputation for sanctity, assembling many dervishes (holy
