Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/181

 As to Nawashiro-gawa, the principal potter at present is Chin Jūkan, twelfth descendant of Chin Tokichi, the Korean who has already been mentioned as a contemporary of Boku Heii. In 1858 Jūkan was appointed head of the Government factory at Nawashiro-gawa. At that time hundreds of workmen were employed under him, and the manufacture was conducted on a large scale. But in 1868, when feudalism was abolished, the factory had to be closed. Subsequently it was opened under the auspices of a company; Jūkan's services being still retained as superintendent. In 1874 this company failed, and the potters employed by it were reduced to a state of destitution. Jūkan then set up on his own account, assuming the art name of Giokozan. He took several of the indigent potters into his employ, and succeeded in reviving the manufacture of the celebrated Nishiki-de Satsuma faience. Two years later, a number of the old potteries at Nawashiro-gawa were re-opened under the auspices of a new company, the Tamanoyama Kaisha. Of the present state of the industry and the methods of the potters, an excellent account is given in a paper read before the Asiatic Society of Japan, by Sir Ernest Satow, K.C.M.G., His Britannic Majesty's Minister, in Peking, the ablest of Japanese Sinologues. Mr. Satow writes thus:—

In February of last year (1877) I had an opportunity of visiting the Korean village of Tsuboya, where I was most hospitably lodged and entertained by one of the inhabitants, to whose care I had been specially commended by a Japanese friend. There is nothing distinctive in the appearance of the people or in the architecture of their houses to attract the notice of a passing traveller; they all speak Japanese as their native tongue, and wear Japanese dress; Tsuboya is in