CONSTANTINOPLE. 151 
forty-five or fifty days from the time of their chap. 
departure. The porcelain of China, brought . 
over-land upon the backs of camels, is exposed 
for sale in Grand Cairo, Smyrna, and Constan- 
tinople. We saw some porcelain dishes for 
containing Pilau, that had been thus conveyed : 
they were a yard in diameter. The same trade 
with China existed in the time of the Romans ; 
and at the introduction of these porcelain vessels 
into Rome, they were bought at enormous 
prices, and were esteemed, by the Romans of 
the Augustan age, as articles of the highest 
luxury and magnificence. These were the 
Fasa Murrhina of Pliny^; as may be proved ^'W" 
irom Belon; who says that the Greeks still 
called them, in his time, "La Mirrhede Smirna,'' 
from Murex, a shell, called by the French the 
Porcelain Shell*; the fine vitrified superficies 
(3) " Oriens murrhina mittit: inveniuntur enim ibi in pluribuB 
locis, nee insignibus, maxime Parthici regni: pracipue tamen in 
Carmania, ^c. Splendor his sine viribus, nitorque veriiis, quara 
splendor : sed in pretio varietas colorum, subinde circumagentibus se 
maculis in purpuram candoremque, et tertium ex utroque ignescentera, 
Tclut per transitum coloris purpura rubescente, aut lacte candescente." 
Plinio, Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvii. cap. 2. torn. III. p. 520. L. Bat. 16SJ. 
(4) "Mais I'affinite de la diction Murex correspond a Murrhina. 
Toutes fois ne chercbons I'etymologie que du nom Frangois, en ce que 
nous disons vaisseaux de Porcelaine, scachants que les Grtcs nomment 
LA MiERHE DB SsiniNA." Singuluritet observers par Belon, liv. il. 
eh. 71. f. 134. Paris, 1555. 
