NAN-CHANG-FOO. 
173 
CHAPTER VII. 
At Nan-chang-foo, where the Embassy re-entered upon the route 
pursued by Lord Macartney, I went abroad for the first time after 
my illness, and had regained sufficient power of observation to 
be interested in the scenery and productions of the country through 
which we were passing. For the conclusion of this work, I depend 
chiefly on my own journal. 
The city of Nan-chang-foo is famous for shops of porcelain, and 
gave us many opportunities of examining splendid vases formed of 
the finest quality of this celebrated ware. Many of these were four feet 
high and two in their largest circumference, of various colours, and 
covered with an immense number of raised figures of plants well 
executed. This imitation of sculpture was also practised on smaller 
pieces, as cups, basins, and especially snuff-bottles. On one of these, 
whose surface could not be more than six inches square, the 
forms of a crowd of Chinese executed with precision and taste, 
were beautifully grouped. I have repeatedly seen on articles of 
this kind a display of skill and accuracy in the delineation of the 
human form for which it is not usual to give the Chinese credit. 
The porcelain most valued by the Chinese was not in our eyes the 
most beautiful ; being covered with lines intersecting each other 
in all directions, occasioning a cracked appearance on its surface. 
This is done perhaps to give it an appearance of antiquity, as an- 
tique porcelain is in the highest degree valued in China. * 
* The Missionaries give a different account of th e Porcelaine Craquelee \ — L’eau qui 
se glace en hiver, dans certains vases, a exactement la forme de la porcelaine cra- 
quelee. II est tout simple que, voyant la forme d’un vase en eau glacee de cette 
