From a passage in the _T´ao lu_ we learn that crackle was a speciality of some of the Yung-ho potters. Under the heading of _Sui ch´i yao_[228] (crackle wares), we are told that "these are the wares made in the Southern Sung period. Originally, they were a special class of the ware made at Yung-ho Chên.... The clay was coarse but strong, the body thick, the material heavy. Moreover, there were 'millet coloured' (_mi sê_) and pale green (_fên ch´ing_) kinds.[229] The potters used _hua shih_ (steatite) in the glaze, and the crackle was in running lines, like a broken thing. They smeared and blackened the ware with coarse ink or ochreous earth; then they finished it. Afterwards they rubbed it clean, and it was found to have hidden lines and stains of red or black, like cracked ice, beautiful to look at. There were besides pieces with plain crackled ground, to which they added blue decoration." This appears to be the first mention of painted blue decoration, and if it is true that it was made in the Sung period, it carries this important method back farther than has been usually supposed. Possibly the ware was of the same type as the coarse crackled porcelain, with roughly painted blue designs, found in Borneo and Malaysia, where it is credited with great antiquity. There is a very interesting specimen in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin, which bears on this question. It came from Japan, where it had been treasured as a Chinese tea bowl of the Sung period, and it has a brownish green crackled glaze painted in dark blue with the characters _O mi t´o fo_ (Amitabha Buddha), which was sometimes written in this way as a charm against evil. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 188: See Hirth, _Ancient Chinese Porcelain_, op. cit., p. 4. The passage discovered by Hirth occurs in the _T´ang pên ts´ao_, the pharmacopœia of the T´ang dynasty, compiled about 650 A.D.] [Footnote 189: See _T´ao shuo_, bk. ii., fol. 7 verso.] [Footnote 190: See _Ko ku yao lun_, bk. vii., fol. 23. "Specimens with tear stains (_lei hên_) outside are genuine."] [Footnote 191: The _T'ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 13, quotes from _T'ang shih ssŭ k'ao_ the following passage which bears on this point: "The Ting and Ju ware used by the Court generally have a copper band on the mouth. This was regarded as destroying their value. But modern collectors of Ting and Ju wares have come to regard the copper band on the mouth as a sign of genuineness. Dealers in curios declare it to be a sign of age."] [Footnote 192: e.g. _Po wu yao lan_, _T'ao lu_, etc.] [Footnote 193: [Chinese] or [Chinese]. The word _hua_ (lit. flowers) is used in the general sense of "ornament." The attempts of certain translators to confine it to the literal sense "flowers" has led to ridiculous results.] [Footnote 194: See p. 101.] [Footnote 195: An early eighteenth-century work, quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 11.] [Footnote 196: See _T´ao shuo_, bk., ii., fol. 7.] [Footnote 197: Bk. vii., fol. 23.]