ins with the most artistic and elaborate
ornamentation." (_Alcock_, I. 191.) Probably the Arab sailors also
indulged in the same kind of decoration. It is common among the Arab women
now, and Della Valle speaks of it as in his time so much in vogue among
both sexes through Egypt, Arabia, and Babylonia, that _he_ had not been
able to escape. (I. 395.)

NOTE 5.--The divergence in Ramusio's version is here very notable: "The
River which enters the Port of Zayton is great and wide, running with
great velocity, and is a branch of that which flows by the city of Kinsay.
And at the place where it quits the main channel is the city of Tingui, of
which all that is to be said is that there they make porcelain basins and
dishes. The manner of making porcelain was thus related to him. They
excavate a certain kind of earth, as it were from a mine, and this they
heap into great piles, and then leave it undisturbed and exposed to wind,
rain, and sun for 30 or 40 years. In this space of time the earth becomes
sufficiently refined for the manufacture of porcelain; they then colour it
at their discretion, and bake it in a furnace. Those who excavate the clay
do so always therefore for their sons and grandsons. The articles are so
cheap in that city that you get 8 bowls for a Venice groat."

Ibn Batuta speaks of porcelain as manufactured at Zayton; indeed he says
positively (and wrongly): "Porcelain is made nowhere in China except in
the cities of Zaitun and Sinkalan" (Canton). A good deal of China ware in
modern times _is_ made in Fo-kien and Canton provinces, and it is still an
article of export from T'swan-chau and Amoy; but it is only of a very
ordinary kind. Pakwiha, between Amoy and Chang-chau, is mentioned in the
_Chinese Commercial Guide_ (p. 114) as now the place where the coarse blue
ware, so largely exported to India, etc., is largely manufactured; and
Phillips mentions Tung-'an (about half-way between T'swan-chau and
Chang-chau) as a great seat of this manufacture.

Looking, however, to the Ramusian interpolations, which do not indicate a
locality necessarily near Zayton, or even in Fo-kien, it is possible that
Murray is right in supposing the place intended _in these_ to be really
_King-te chen_ in Kiang-si, the great seat of the manufacture of genuine
porcelain, or rather its chief mart JAU-CHAU FU on the P'o-yang Lake.

The geographical indication of this city of porcelain, as at the place
where a branch of the River of K