Evident from what
Marsden says in his History of Sumatra, that in the last century some
tangible quantity was still sent to China. The export from the Company's
plantations in Sumatra averaged 1200 tons, of which the greater part came
to Europe, the rest went to China.
[Couto says also: "Os portos principaes do Reyno da Sunda sao Banta, Ache,
Xacatara, por outro nome Caravao, aos quaes vam todos os annos mui perto
de vinte sommas, que sao embarcacoes do Chincheo, huma das Provincias
maritimas da China, a carregar de pimenta, porque da este Reyno todos es
annos oito mil bares della, que sao trinta mil quintaes." (Decada IV.
Liv. III. Cap. I. 167.)]
NOTE 4. - These tattooing artists were probably employed mainly by mariners
frequenting the port. We do not know if the Malays practised tattooing
before their conversion to Islam. But most Indo-Chinese races tattoo, and
the Japanese still "have the greater part of the body and limbs scrolled
over with bright-blue dragons, and lions, and tigers, and figures of men
and women tattooed into their skins with the most artistic and elaborate
ornamentation." (Alcock, I. 191.) Probably the Arab sailors also
indulged in the same kind of decoration. It is common among the Arab women
now, and Della Valle speaks of it as in his time so much in vogue among
both sexes through Egypt, Arabia, and Babylonia, that he had not been
able to escape. (I. 395.)
NOTE 5. - The divergence in Ramusio's version is here very notable: "The
River which enters the Port of Zayton is great and wide, running with
great velocity, and is a branch of that which flows by the city of Kinsay.
And at the place where it quits the main channel is the city of Tingui, of
which all that is to be said is that there they make porcelain basins and
dishes. The manner of making porcelain was thus related to him. They
excavate a certain kind of earth, as it were from a mine, and this they
heap into great piles, and then leave it undisturbed and exposed to wind,
rain, and sun for 30 or 40 years. In this space of time the earth becomes
sufficiently refined for the manufacture of porcelain; they then colour it
at their discretion, and bake it in a furnace. Those who excavate the clay
do so always therefore for their sons and grandsons. The articles are so
cheap in that city that you get 8 bowls for a Venice groat."
Ibn Batuta speaks of porcelain as manufactured at Zayton; indeed he says
positively (and wrongly): "Porcelain is made nowhere in China except in
the cities of Zaitun and Sinkalan" (Canton). A good deal of China ware in
modern times is made in Fo-kien and Canton provinces, and it is still an
article of export from T'swan-chau and Amoy; but it is only of a very
ordinary kind.
