430 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



tioos betweeu Chiua and Sumatra are stated to have existed from tlie 

 T'ieuyu period (904 to 909) of the T'ang dyuasty, anl the name Sar- 

 baza, which has been identified with 8an-fo chH (above mentioned) or 

 Palembang", was kuown to Arab traders of that time, as we learn 

 from translations of their travels by Kenaudot and Reinaud. They 

 were also acquainted with Chinese i)orcelain, for mention is made by 

 one of them, Soleyman by name, who visited China towards the middle 

 of the ninth century, "of a very fine clay in that country, of which 

 vases are made having the transparence of glass ; water can be seen 

 through them."* Indeed earlier, during the eighth century, Arab writ- 

 ers mention the presence in the Persian Gulf of fleets of large Chinese 

 junks. 



At this date the Arab trade with China was evidently very exten- 

 sive, and the colonies of Arabs at Canton and at Canfu, the port of 

 Quinsai (the present Hangchow), very large. They are said to have 

 been so numerous at the former place in the eighth century as to 

 have been able to attack and pillage the city. While at Canfu the 

 Soliman above referred to (the manuscript account of whose travels 

 was written, says his commentator, Abu Zaid Al Hasan, in A. D. 851) 

 mentions the fact that " a Mohammedan held the position of judge over 

 those of his religion, by the authority of the Emperor of China, who is 

 judge of all the Mohammedans who resort to those parts. Upon festival 

 days he performs the public service with the Mohammedans, and pro- 

 nounces the sermon or kotbat, which he concludes in the usual form, 

 with prayers for the Sultan of Moslems. The merchants of Irak — i. e,, 

 Persia — who trade thither are no way dissatisfied with his conduct or 

 administration in this port, because his decisions are just and equitable 

 and conformable to the Koran." And the commentator on these travels, 

 Abu Zaid Al Hasan, who probably wrote early in the tenth century, 

 when speaking of the interruption then recently caused in " the ordi- 

 nary navigation from Siraf to China," states this to have been occa- 

 sioned by the revolt of " an ofiBcer who was considerable for his em- 

 ployment, though not of royal family," named Baichu. He laid siege 

 to Canfu in the year of the Hegira 264 (A. D. 885). "At last he be- 

 came master of the city, and put all the inhabitants to the sword. 

 There are persons fully acquainted with the affairs of China, who as- 

 sure us that, besides the Chinese who were massacred on this occasion, 

 there perished 120,000 Mohammedans, Jews, Christians, and Parsees, 

 who were there on account of traffic. Tiie number of the professors 

 of these four religions who thus perished is exactly kuown, because the 

 Chinese are exceeding nice in the accounts they keep of them."t 



Apart, however, from this sea route, porcelain might possibly have 

 followed the course of the overland traffic through Central Asia, the 

 use of which can be traced back to a very remote antiquity, some au- 



* Reiuaud's translation, p. 34, quoted by M. du Sartel. 



t Harris's "Collection of Voyages" (764), Vol. i, pp. 523 and 530. 



