LAMU CHINA AND POTTERY 
493 
have been bought by the inhabitants as articles of ornament 
at a time when the Arabs were a wealthy class, but I think 
that most of the cups, saucers, and small plates, which are 
the only articles now obtainable (except very rarely) were 
probably purchased from the Asiatic trading vessels for 
ordinary household use in the same manner that cheap European 
or Japanese crockery and enamelled ware are now purchased. 
Saucers are the commonest article to be found, and most 
of those that have survived were those used for ornamental 
purposes, as they nearly all have holes drilled in them for 
hanging them up. These saucers were also largely used for 
decorating mosques, dwelling-houses, and tombs, being set 
in the plaster-work, which was often of a very elaborate design. 
Articles of old English or European china are sometimes 
found, and I have seen marked specimens of Worcester, Spode, 
Stafford, and Copeland, as well as unmarked pieces of various 
kinds ; all these probably belong to the time of William IY or 
early in Victoria’s reign. 
Good specimens of old china are hard to get, and, as a rule, 
it is only when some old Arab dies, and his goods are put up 
for auction for division of the estate, that they come on the 
market. 
Pottery 
As the designs of such articles as water-jars and cooking- 
pots have probably not changed for many centuries, it is 
difficult to form any opinion as to their age. The pottery 
now made locally is rarely, if ever, enamelled, but the enamel 
on modern Arabian jars is very similar to that of old bowls 
which have been dug out of the ruins of Pati, which are 
probably centuries old. 
I think that most of the pottery found in Lamu is Arabian 
and Chinese. 
A short time ago I got from Siyu, on Pati Island, an old 
wine- jar of coarse glazed pottery, greenish brown in colour. 
It is almost globular in shape, with a short neck and loop 
handle at the neck ; in front, where the neck joins the body, 
there is the face of a man with a long beard, very much like 
those on the Bellarmine jugs which were made in the sixteenth 
