THE CERAMIC ART IN CHINA. 431 



thorities claiming that there are indications of communication by this 

 route between China and the West so early as 2698 B. C, and that in 

 2353 B. C. an embassy arrived in China from a country which is sup- 

 posed to have been Chaldea.* There is, therefore, nothing impossible 

 in the claim put forward that a small ivory-white plate having uncut 

 emeralds and rubies, set in gold filigree, let into paste, and the Chinese 

 word/w (happiness) marked on the foot in the seal character under the 

 glaze, now in the royal collection at Dresden, was brought into Europe 

 by a crusader in the twelfth century ; provided, of course, the paste, 

 glaze, etc., correspond with those which characterize the porcelain 

 manufactured in China about that date or prior to it. 



KIND OF PORCELAIN CARRIED WESTWARD. 



What then was the porcelain that participated in this ea,Y]y trade? 

 Chao Ju-kua, in the single instance in which he alludes to its color, 

 states it to have been " white and cliHng, or celadon." It would almost 

 necessarily have consisted of strong, coarse ware, in order to resist the 

 chances of breakage consequent upon the many transshipments inci- 

 dental to these long voyages in the rude craft of those early ages, and 

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

 I)osed of in Ibn Batuta's day. Colonel Yule has thought that during 

 the Yiian dynasty it probably came from the Chingte chen manufac- 

 tories, but this scarcely seems probable, for the T'^ao-shuo, or " Treatise 

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

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

 chou, or ''the Amoy waters" (Dr. Douglas' comj^romise between the 

 two— as the headquarters of the western trade, would naturally re- 

 ceive supplies for export of Euan-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. 



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

 Dyak, says : 



Among his greatest treasures are a series of gudji hlanga, 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 the 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 



* Sir Charles Wilson's "Address to Geographical Section of the British Association," 

 Bath, 1888. 



