And now we must take up another thread of our inquiry and return to the China of the thirteenth century, the China of Kublai Khan, the greatest of the Mongol rulers, as described in the book of the Venetian traveller Marco Polo. Here, in what is for us a classical passage, we find the first known instance of the use of the word porcelain. Marco Polo has been describing the wonders and riches of Zaitun, and he proceeds in his inconsequent way--we will quote first from the old French text, probably the earliest--‘Et sachiez que pres de ceste cité de Çayton a une autre cité qui a nom Tiunguy, là où l’en fait moult d’escuelles et de pourcelainnes qui sont moult belles. Et en nul autre port on n’en fait, fors que en cestuy; et en y a l’en moult bon marchie’ (Pauthier, _Marco Polo_, chapter clvi.). Translating from the later and more expanded Italian text, Colonel Yule renders the corresponding passage as follows: ‘Let me tell you that there is in this province a town called Tyunju, where they make vessels of porcelain of all sizes, the finest that can be imagined. They make it nowhere but in this city, and thence it is exported all over the world. Here it is abundant and very cheap, insomuch that for a Venice groat you can buy three dishes so fine that you could not imagine better.’ In the still later version of Ramusio, printed at Venice in 1579, we find one of the first mentions of the old fable that the porcelain earth was allowed to weather for two generations before being used. (See Yule, _Marco Polo_, vol. i. p. cxxii. and vol. ii. pp. 186 and 190.) Confining ourselves to the old French version, the point to bear in mind is the use of the word ‘pourcelainnes’ in this sense as one familiar to the reader and requiring no explanation. And yet in the two other passages of Marco Polo’s book, where the word is found, it is used, and here too without further explanation, for the Cowry shells (_Cypræa_) that then, as now, took the place of money in certain markets of the East. There can be little doubt that the ware of which Marco Polo spoke was some kind of celadon, and Dr. Hirth’s identification of Tingui with Lung-chuan is perhaps more plausible than the rival claims of Tekkwa and King-te-chen. Ibn Batuta, the Arab traveller, who wrote nearly fifty years later, says ‘porcelain is made nowhere in China except in the cities of Zaitun and Sinkalon (Canton).’ In this statement he is of course quite wide of the mark. Like Marco Polo, however, he was struck by the cheapness of the ware, and he mentions that it was exported as far as Maghreb (Morocco).