Page 104 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

layan Rajahs, or of the chiefs of the native tribes. I never
had an opportunity of seeing one of these valued relics of

antiquity, but am told that, like the Nagas, they are glazed,
but larger. They have small handles round them, called
ears, and figures of dragons are traced upon their surface ;

their value is about 2,000 dollars. In the houses of their

owners they are a source of great profit ; they are kept with

pious care, being covered with beautiful cloths. Water is
kept in them, which is sold te the tribe, and valued on
account of the virtues it is supposed to possess, and which
it derives from the jar which has contained it. By what
people these relics were made, and by what means they have
been thus distributed and the veneration for them so widely
spread, cannot be at this time determined. Some of the
jars were sent from Banjor Massim to China by the Dutch,
who hoped to make a profitable speculation by their credu-
lity ; but the artists of that country could not, though famed
for their imitative powers, copy these with sufficient exact-
ness to deceive the Dyaks, who immediately discovered they
were not those they esteemed, and consequently set no value

upon them. From their price, it is presumed that these jars

are very rare.

This statement of Low's that the Chinese of later

times were not able to reproduce the celadons of the

Sung period, will be explained when the subsequent
history of the manufacture is considered. As for the
taste educated among the people of Borneo by gradual

acquaintance with Chinese wares, Mr. Carl Bock's

description of Dyak life, in The Head-Hunters of

Borneo, conveys a good idea :

Chairs and tables form no part of the furniture of an
ordinary Dyak's house. . . . In a corner, near the fire-
place, will generally be found stored a collection of crockery

ware, for the Dyak is something of a china-maniac, and
belongs to the modern aesthetic school, setting great store

by the china vessels which he procures in exchange for the
various products of the country from the Malay merchants,

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