Page 106 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

chapters as to the true nature of early Chinese

wares.

Concerning the other countries to which such
wares were exported, Dr. Hirth extracts many de-
tails from Chao Jukua's work. In Cochin China,

as well as in Cambodia, the local products were ex-
changed against Chinese " porcelain," umbrellas, gauze
fans, lacquered wares, samshu, and sugar. In Java,
which was within a month's sail of Ch'iian-chou-fu,

via the Straits of Lingas, the pepper of the country
was purchased with imitation gold and silver, with

silks, damasks, drugs, cinnabar, alum, borax, lacquered
"
ware, iron tripods, and green and white porcelain."

At Palembang in Sumatra there was a depot of Chi-
"
nese products and manufactures, where silver,
gold,

rpohrucbealrabi,n,asnidlkcpaimepceh-ogroo"dsw,esruegasrt,orierdon,fosramssahlue, ginger,

to Arab

traders, who carried them to India, Africa, and West-

ern Asia. This depot seems to have existed from the

T'ien-yu period of the Tang dynasty ( 904907 ). At

Lambri, in the north-west of Sumatra, " the last sta-

tion before one enters the Indian Ocean in travelling

from Sumatra to Ceylon," " another depot existed.
Here, " porcelain was imported,
it was
although

doubtless intended for re-export chiefly, as the people

are said to have eaten their meals from their hands

and used household utensils of copper. From Lam-

bri Chinese junks pushed on to Coilam, on the coast of
Malabar, though this distant voyage does not seem to
have been regularly undertaken. It is, however, dis-
tinctly stated that the products of Malabar were ex-

changed at Palembang against flower-tanks ( probably
"
of pottery ), silks, porcelain," camphor, rhubarb,

cloves, etc. Chao Jukua, as translated by Dr. Hirth,

72