So there we were, but not the fur coat! What a comfort it was, though, to rest after that long, hot day! And how luxurious to be carried next day in a sedan-chair along the beautiful banks of the swift-flowing Tung! Then six days' travelling, against time now, along the great brick-tea road, through scenes of varying beauty, among gigantic ferns and waxen begonias nestling into the walls, past long ranges of black-and-white farm-buildings, shadowed by large, beautiful shade-trees; a day and a half on a bamboo raft down the exceedingly pretty but turbulent Ya, with the waves washing up to our knees at all the bad rapids; after which five days down the conjoined rivers Ya, Tung, and Yangtse; and then home in Chungking again, after the most adventurous and by far the most varied and interesting summer outing that it has yet fallen to my lot to make.
[2] Reproduced from the _Cornhill Magazine_ by the kind permission of the Editor.
Porcelain.--Bronzes.--Silver-work.--Pictures.--Architecture.-- Tea.--Silk.--White Wax.--Grass cloth.--Ivory Fans.--Embroidery.
Even if I had the knowledge, it would be useless to attempt to write exhaustively of Chinese porcelain in one chapter; but a few shreds of information about it may be new to the general reader. Julien's theory that it was first made between the years 185 B.C. and A.D. 87 is set aside by Dr. Hirth, the greatest living authority upon ancient Chinese porcelain. The latter believes it was first made during the T'ang Dynasty, which lasted to A.D. 907; but there are no specimens of porcelain extant before the Sung Dynasty, which ended in 1259, the majority even then being of the class known as "celadons," which survived owing to their thickness and strength. The prevailing colour of these celadons is green, the colour of jade; and yellow is mentioned as one of the ingredients used for producing this colour. They were mostly made in the south-west of the province of Chekiang, taken by river to the Amoy waters, and thence distributed by Arab traders to Japan, Borneo, Sumatra, the west of Asia, and the east coast of Africa, in which last, curiously enough, large numbers have been discovered. They have been freely imitated at King-teh-chen, the great porcelain factory of China, as well as in Japan; but collectors should, it seems, have no difficulty in distinguishing the genuine articles, from their extreme hardness.