DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



The name Fu Lin, also read Fo Lin, may or may not be 

 the Chinese transliteration of ? rnv vo\iv t said to be the 

 origin of the name Stambul, but these dogs certainly came 

 from the West, and there is little doubt that Byzantium, now 

 Constantinople, the Eastern capital of the Roman Empire, 

 was designated by the word.* 



The last distinct record of a communication from the 

 Byzantine Empire is found in A.D. 1371 under the Emperor 

 Hung Wu. It is interesting to note that by this time the 

 Chinese capital was definitely fixed at Peking, but that up 

 to the middle of the seventeenth century the Chinese literati 

 continued to call the small Imperial dogs by the generic 

 name of " Dogs of Fu Lin." Modern research has shown 

 that the silk trade between the Eastern Roman or Byzantine 

 Empire and China was considered to be of very considerable 

 importance by the Courts of both China and the West, as 

 well as by the Turks and other fluctuating peoples through 

 whose country the trade passed. In 719 there arrived in 

 China an embassy from Fu Lin bringing lions and spiral- 

 horned sheep. The Byzantine Emperor at this time was 

 Leo the Isaurian. There are definite records of at least 

 seven direct embassies from Fu Lin to China between the 

 years A.D. 600 and 1400. Seeing that the powerful T'ang 

 monarchs, whose empire in the case of T'ai Tsung stretched 

 westward to the Caspian, displayed great interest in the Fu 

 Lin breed of dogs, it would not be surprising if later research 

 were to demonstrate that numerous specimens of the breed 

 were imported to Hsianfu, the T'ang capital, direct from 

 Byzantium. 



The success of the Mohammedans interfered with, and 

 possibly put an end to the Byzantine trade which had been 



* " Cathay and the Way Thither," Yule, vol. i, p. 44 ; and Bushell, " Chinese Art," 

 P-73- 

 128 



