CERAMIC ART IN CHINA. 355 



chances of breakage consequent upon the many transshipments inci- 

 dental to these long vo3'ages in the rude craft of those early agea, and 

 to allow its sale at the comparatively cheap rates at which it was dis- 

 posed of in Ibn Batuta's day. Colonel Yule has thought that during 

 the Yiian dynast}' it probably came from the Chingte-chen manufac- 

 tories, but this scarcely seems probable, for the Vao-sli%LO, or Treatise 

 on Pottery, says that no porcelain was then made there, except by 

 imperial order and for the court. Zaitun — whether Chinchew, Chang- 

 chow, or "the Amoy waters" (Doctor Douglas's compromise between 

 the two) — as the headquarters of the western trade, would naturally 

 receive supplies for export of Kuan-yao and of Ko-yao (both celadon in 

 color) from the not far distant factories at Hangchow and Lungch'iian, 

 respectively, as well as from the more distant factories, most of the 

 productions of which were at this time also celadons. And celadon 

 porcelains bearing all the distinctive characteristics of the Chinese 

 manufactures of that nature have been discovered in almost all parts 

 of the then Mohammedan world and in the countries visited by the 

 early Arab traders. 



Mr. Carl Bock, speaking in his Head Hunters of Borneo of the 

 Dyak, says: 



Among his greatest treasures are a series of gudji blanga, a sort of glazed jar im- 

 ported from China, in green, blue, or brown, ornamented with figures of lizards and 

 serpents in relief. These pots are valued at from 100 florins to as much as 3,000 flor- 

 ins (£8 to £240) each, according to size, pattern, and, above all, old age, combined 

 with good condition. According to native legend, these precious vases are made 

 of the remnants of the same clay from which Mahatara (the Almighty) made first the 

 sun and then the moon. Medicinal virtues are attributed to these urns, and they are 

 regarded as affording complete protection from evil spirits to the house in which 

 they are stored. A very full account of the various legends connected with these 

 giuJji blanga is given in Mr. W. T. H. Perelaee's most interesting work Ethnographi- 

 sche Beschreibimg der Dyaks, pp. 112-120.^ 



Mr. Bock saw Doctor Hirth's collection of Lungch'iian celadons, 

 and found in it pieces resembling the ware preserved by the Dyaks, 



^ The possession of these vessels by the Dyaks, their use and value, are also chron- 

 icled by earlier travelers. The belief in the efficacy of porcelain vessels to detect 

 jioison in liquids contained in them is of ancient date and not confined to Asia alone, 

 though the manner in which the porcelain was affected by the presence of poison 

 appears to have varied in different cases. Thus, Guido PanciroUi, the learned juris- 

 consult and antiquary of Padua (d. 1599), and his editor, Salnuitti (Guidonis Pan- 

 (nrolli, J. C, Claris, rerum memorabilium libri duo; ex Italico Latine redditi et eotis 

 illustrati ab Henrico Salnmtti, Antwerp, 1612) say that the presence of poison 

 caused the porcelain either to break or to change color; while Dumont, in his Trav- 

 els in Turkey, 1699, says that it caused the liquid to effervesce in the center while 

 it remained cool near the vessel itself, the Turks, owing to this property, preferring 

 porcelain to silver as the material of dinner services. Salmutti mentions the presen- 

 tation to himself of one of these vessels by an Austrian prince, and Paul Hentzner 

 (Itnerarium Gallia-, Anglia;, Italiie, 1616) says he saw some of them in the Farnese 

 Palace at Rome. 



