Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/94

 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 to 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 credulity; but the artists of that country could not, though famed for their imitative powers, copy these with sufficient exactness 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 céladons 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 fireplace, will generally be found stored a collection of crockery ware, for the Dyak is something of a china-maniac, and belongs to the modern æsthetic school, setting great store by the china vessels which he procures in exchange for the various products of the country from the Malay merchants,