Most of these colours explain themselves. The _soufflé_ red is no doubt the same as the _ch’ui hung_ described by Père d’Entrecolles and discussed above with the so-called _lang yao_. The _soufflé_ blue will be no other than the familiar “powder blue.” But the “spotted yellow” is an ambiguous term, for the Chinese _huang pan tien_[273] might mean a yellow glaze spotted with some other colour, a mottled yellow, or even a glaze with yellow spots like that of a rare vase in the Eumorfopoulos Collection, which has a brown black glaze flecked with greenish yellow spots. Bushell identified the spotted yellow glaze with the “tiger skin,” with its patches of green, yellow and aubergine glazes applied to the biscuit, which in the finer specimens is etched with dragon designs.[274] This is practically all the direct information which the Chinese annals supply on the K’ang Hsi period, but in contrast with this strange reticence we have a delightful account of the industry at Ching-tê Chên during this important time in the two oft-quoted letters[275] written by the Jesuit father, d’Entrecolles, in 1712 and 1722. The worthy father’s work lay among the potters themselves, and his information was derived from first-hand observation and from the notes supplied by his potter converts, with whatever help he was able to extract from the Annals of Fou-liang and similar native books. No subsequent writer has enjoyed such a favoured position, and as his observations have been laid under heavy contribution ever since, no apology is necessary for frequent reference to them in these pages. CHAPTER IX K’ANG HSI BLUE AND WHITE