It is impossible to leave the subject of celadon without a few words on the distribution of the ware in the Middle Ages, though I have no intention of embarking on the lengthy discussion which the interesting nature of the subject invites, nor of reopening the much-debated _Celadonfrage_ which elicited many interesting contributions[177] from Professors Karabacek, A.B. Meyer, and Hirth, and Dr. Bushell. Probably no single article of commerce can tell so much of the mediæval trade between China and the West as the old celadon porcelains whose fragments are constantly unearthed on the sites of the old-world trading stations. The caravan routes through Turkestan and the seaborne trade through the Eastern Archipelago and the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and east coast of Africa can be followed by porcelains deposited at the various trading centres and ports of call. Much, too, has been learnt from the writings of Chinese, Arab, and European travellers and geographers. Professor Hirth, as early as 1888, worked out the principal routes of Chinese seaborne trade from the "Records of Chinese Foreign Trade and Shipping,"[178] compiled by Chao Ju-kua about 1220 A.D., starting from the Tingui[179] of Marco Polo, which he identifies with Lung-ch´üan itself, and finishing in Egypt and Zanzibar. The porcelain was carried by land and river to the great port of Ch´üan-chou Fu, and thence in junks to Bruni in Borneo, Cochin China, and Cambodia, Java, Lambri, and Palembang, in Sumatra, where the traders of the East and West met and exchanged goods. Thence the trade proceeded to Quilom in Malabar, Guzerate, Cambray, and Malwa, and as far as Zanzibar. Numerous other localities might be mentioned, and much has been written[180] of the veneration in which old Chinese wares have always been held in the Philippines and Borneo, and of the magic powers attributed to the old dragon jars by the natives of these countries.