432 EEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



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 gudji 

 Manga is given in Mr. W. T. H. Perelace's most interesting work Ethnographisclw 

 Bcschrijving der Dyalcs, pp. 112-120.* 



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

 foimd in it pieces resembling the ware preserved by the Dyaks, but 

 specimens are, it appears, common among them which bear no resem- 

 blance to any of the celebrated monochrome wares of the Sung and 

 Yiian dynasties, a fact Dr. Hirth would explain by supposing that 

 "they came from factories equally old, but less renowned, such as the 

 place where the Chien-yao of the Sung dynasty was made, the city of 

 Chien-yang in the north of Fukien, which is all the more likely since 

 Chao Ju-kua, in his description of the trade with Borneo, specially men- 

 tions ' brocades of Ohien-yaug' among the articles of import there."t 



A controversy has, however, recently arisen as to whether the cela- 

 don vases found throughout the Mohammedan world are really of Chi- 

 nese origin at all. Professor Karabacek, an Arabic scholar of Vienna, 

 maintains that the "large, heavy, thick, green celadon dishes with the 

 well-known ferruginous ring on the bottom, which have been found 

 spread over all the countries of Arab civilization," are not of Chinese 

 origin, basing his theory mainly on the statement made by Hadschi 

 Chalfa, an encyclopedist who died in 1658, that " the precious, magnifi- 

 cent c61adon dishes and other vessels seen in his time were manufact- 

 ured and exported at Martaban, in Pegu." The Arab designation 

 Martabani is applied by Professor Karabacek to the thick, heavy cela- 

 dons. It would, however, appear to have been also applied to a variety 

 of entirely dilferent character. 



Jacqueraart, in his " History of the Ceramic Art," quotes Chardin's 

 " Voyages en Perse" as follows : " Everything at the King's table is of 

 massive gold or porcelain. There is a kind of green porcelain so pre- 

 cious that one dish alone is worth 400 crowns. They say this porcelain 

 detects poison by changing color, but that is a fable; its price arises 

 from its beauty and the delicacy of the material, which renders it trans- 



* 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 

 poison 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 PaucirolU, the learned juris- 

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

 cirolli, J. C, Claris, rerum memorabilinm libri duo ; ex Italies Latins redditi et eotis 

 illustrati ab Henrico Salmutti," Antwerp, 1612) state that the presence of poison 

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

 els in Turkey," 1699, states 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 Gallii©, Angliae, Italise," 1616) says he saw some of them in the Farnese 

 Palace at Eome. 



t Hirth, Oj). cit, p. 50. 



