ÔKÔCHI OR NABESHIMA WARE.--The same high technical finish has been attained in the Ôkôchi porcelain made at the village of that name (_Ô-kawa-uchi_) three miles to the north of Arita. The kilns here were patronised by the Nabeshima princes, who belonged to one of the greatest feudal families of old Japan. In this case also, the small highly finished pieces were destined for presents only and were never sold. This ware is generally to be identified by the comb-like pattern (Japanese _Kushi-ki_), painted in blue round the base of the cups and bowls.[124] Like the little Chinese boys of the Mikôchi ware, this pattern is often seen on very inferior ware of quite modern manufacture. A peculiar kind of finely crackled celadon was also made at Ôkôchi. In the Arita district are many other factories, some of which, as those at Matsugawa, have at times produced excellent ware. Of most of these private kilns, however, the chief outturn has always been confined to the blue and white _sometsuke_ for domestic use. * * * * * We have now to follow the steps by which the knowledge of porcelain was carried from the western island to other parts of Japan. We had better pass at once to the Kioto kilns, for although the manufacture of porcelain was not introduced at the old capital so early as at some other places in the main island, yet the skill of its artist potters and their connection with the imperial court led, in the course of the eighteenth century, to the spread of their influence in every direction. Kioto was already in the sixteenth century the seat of more than one ceramic industry, but it was not so much the problem of the materials for a true porcelain, as the questions connected with the coloured enamels lately brought over from the West, that excited the curiosity of the Kioto potter at this time. The story goes that one Aoyama Koyemon (I quote again from _The Chrysanthemum_, April 1883), who came to Kioto from the porcelain district of Hizen, to obtain orders for the new enamelled ware, allowed the secret of its manufacture to be wormed out of him by a crafty Kioto dealer, and that for this breach of trust the wretched ‘traveller’ was crucified by his liege lord on his return to Arita. This occurred just before the death of the great ceramic artist Ninsei (about 1660), and the old potter at once obtained the knowledge of the new enamelling process from the above-mentioned crockery merchant. This man, we should add--the dealer--is said to have gone mad when he heard the dreadful fate of his friend Koyemon--a fate for which he was in so large a measure responsible. Such stories as this, and there are other similar ones in the annals of Japanese ceramics, call to mind the adventures of the experts of the eighteenth century, who trafficked with the German princes in the _arcana_ of the newly introduced porcelain, but for these German experts the penalties for breach of confidence were not of so severe a nature.