King-te-chen stands on a small river that flows south-west to fall into the Po-yang lake. At this point, close by the lake, lies, as already mentioned, the city of Jao-chau, the capital of the whole district and the residence of the prefect. King-te-chen, however, the town of the potter, is not directly subordinate to Jao-chau; to the official mind it is a mere dependency of the sub-prefecture of Fouliang, a small walled town or _hsien_ in the immediate neighbourhood. It is in the annals of this _hsien_ that the early history of King-te-chen is to be found. We may compare the relative positions of these three Chinese towns with those existing in the eighteenth century between the long straggling villages of Burslem or Stoke and the adjacent town of Newcastle in the first place, and then between the latter and the county town of Stafford. The importance of King-te-chen may, however, be inferred from the fact that the superintendent of the imperial potteries was often at the same time controller of the local customs and viceroy of the surrounding provinces. King-te-chen, then, was built where the little river flowed out from the barren mountain tract to the east--a region made still more barren by the cutting down of all the wood to provide fuel for the kilns, and whose inhabitants were reputed to be as rude and rugged as their surroundings. It is from the gorges of this rough hilly country that the precious kaolin and petuntse are excavated. These substances are formed locally by the decomposition of the rock of which the hills are composed, a variety of graphic granite with much soda-holding felspar. In a narrow space, crowded for more than four miles along the river bank between shops, temples, and guardhouses, were built the kilns and the workshops. Towards the south rises a small hill where the tiled roofs of the temples and pavilions are seen half hidden among the trees. This is the Jewel or Guardian Hill which commands the adjacent imperial manufactory. This factory was first established here in the fourteenth century, but since then it has been more than once burned to the ground in times of riot and rebellion. The works were last rebuilt in 1866. Dr. Bushell has translated an official description of the series of workshops, from the mixing-house to the muffle-furnaces of the enamellers, the whole enclosed by a wall about a mile in circuit. The kilns are no longer within the enclosure as they were in Ming times. The imperial porcelain is now fired in private furnaces scattered through the town.