[Footnote 394: S. Wells Williams, _Commercial Guide to China_, 1863, p. 13. Speaking of pottery the author says: "The charges for freight forbid it to be carried far, and manufactures of it are numerous; that for Canton is at Shih-hwan." No doubt this is Shih-wan [Chinese]. Another name for Canton pottery is Shakwan ware, which is probably a variant of Shih-wan.] [Footnote 395: _Catalogue spécial de la Collection Chinoise à l'Exposition Universelle_, Paris, 1878, pp. 10-12.] CHAPTER XV YI-HSING [Chinese] WARE THE potteries at Yi-hsing Hsien, in the prefecture of Ch´ang-chou, in Kiangsu, at no great distance from Shanghai, have long been celebrated for elegantly shaped teapots of unglazed stoneware in red and other colours. They have, in fact, been honoured with a special book, the _Yang-hsien ming hu hsi_,[396] or "Story of the teapots of Yang-hsien" (an old name for Yi-hsing), written in the seventeenth century[397]; but though extracts from this work occur in the _T´ao lu_ and elsewhere, I have been unable to get access to any copy of the original. This deficiency, however, has been made good by an important translation given by Brinkley[398] of a short Japanese work which, he says, "owes nothing to Japanese research, being merely transcribed from Chinese annals." The legendary story of the discovery of the all-important clay deposits in Mount Tao-jung Shu-shan is followed by a description of the chief varieties of this material which include light yellow clay for mixing; another, yellow clay called _shih huang_ (stone yellow) which turned to cinnabar red in the firing; a blue clay which turned to dark brown; a clay which produced a "pear skin" colour; a light scarlet clay which produced a pottery of the colour of pine spikelets; a light yellow clay making a green ware; and another producing a light red pottery. The "pear skin" clay mixed with white sand formed a material of a light ink brown colour. With these materials, and with their conspicuous skill in blending clays, it may well be imagined that the Yi-hsing potters were able to make innumerable varieties in their ware. The commonest shades, however, are deep and light red, chocolate brown, buff, drab and black brown; occasionally the clays are speckled--e.g. buff ware with blue specks--or powdered with minute particles of quartz, and frequently two or more clays are used in contrasting tints on the same piece. The body of the ware is sometimes soft enough to powder under the knife, but as a rule it is a very hard stoneware, capable of receiving a fine polish on the lapidary's wheel. The choicest teapots are unglazed, though often a sort of natural gloss has formed on the surface in the kiln.