We need not dwell here on the well-known passion of the Dyaks of Borneo for celadon porcelain, and the big prices that they are prepared to give for fine old pieces (_Cf._ Bock, _The Head Hunters of Borneo_, p. 197 _seq._). Of the specimens of celadon and other wares brought from this island we shall speak shortly. Modern travellers tell us that the larger jars, ‘decorated with lizards and serpents’ (probably the early smooth-skinned dragon of the Chinese), are preserved as heirlooms. Besides their medicinal value they are a complete protection from evil spirits for the house in which they are stored. From later Chinese writers (of the sixteenth century) we learn that these large jars were used in Borneo in place of coffins, and it is a significant fact that a similar mode of burial is still in use in Fukien, the district from which these vessels were exported, but not elsewhere in China.
To return to our Sung inspector of trade, as quoted by Dr. Hirth, Chao tells us that at the ports of Cambodja, of Annam, and of Java, the Chinese bartered both green and white porcelain against pepper and other local products. But at that time the great emporium for the Western trade was the port known to the Arabs as Sarbaya, the modern Palembang in the island of Sumatra. Here, or at Lambri, in the same island, the junks laid up for the winter, and in the spring the Chinese goods were carried further west to Quilon, on the Malabar coast of the Deccan, this time probably in Arab bottoms. The porcelain and the other Chinese exports were now distributed to the various lands with which the Arabs traded at that time. Chao Ju-kua, in this connection, mentions Guzerate, and an island that most probably can be identified with Zanzibar. At any rate, at this last spot fragments of celadon porcelain have been discovered in recent days in association with Chinese ‘cash’ of the tenth and eleventh centuries.
There are scattered notices of this Sinico-Arab trade in the works of Arab geographers and travellers, from Edrisi to Ibn Batuta. The last writer, indeed, states that Chinese porcelain has found its way as far west as Morocco. It was a happy idea of the Director of the Ethnographical Museum, in the Zwinger at Dresden, to collect from every available quarter specimens of Chinese porcelain with the object of illustrating the wide distribution of the ware in early days, apart from and mostly previous to that brought about by European agencies. In this collection the heavy celadon or ‘martabani’ occupies, as we might expect, a prominent place, but the later enamelled wares, including even some special types that may be included under the _famille rose_ of the eighteenth century, have been found both in Cairo and in Siam. Here we see large, heavy celadon plates, with thick glaze of pea-soup colour, from the Celebes, from Mindanoa and Luzon in the Philippine group, from Ceram and from other islands of the further Indies. On some of these plates the glaze covers the whole foot, and the unglazed ring, of deep red colour, on the upper surface, points to a primitive method of support in the kiln similar to that formerly in use in Siam. Other celadon plates (there are some huge ones, nearly a yard in diameter, in the collection), differing little from those found in these southern islands, came on the one hand from Cairo, and on the other from Korea and from Japan. From Korea there are also specimens of a curious crackle-ware with brownish glaze and a rough decoration in blue, and from Java a figure of Kwan-yin of a native type, covered with a pale, almost white, celadon glaze. In the same collection we find plates roughly decorated with red and green enamels, a style of decoration which may perhaps be traced back to the earlier enamels of Ming times. Examples of this type of ware--some at least appear to be of porcelain--have been found both in the Philippines and in Ceylon. To come down to more recent times, pieces decorated with large peony-flowers, enamelled with an opaque white tinted by the _rouge d’or_, on a bright green ground of leaves, come from the Celebes, from Siam, and especially from Cairo.[128]