The Memlook Sultans of Egypt encouraged commerce with the East. Makrisi tells us that Kelaun received an embassy from Ceylon. During the fourteenth century and later, the goods transhipped at Aden were carried to the ports on the west coast of the Red Sea and then brought overland to Assuan or to Koos, a town lower down the Nile, near to Koptos. Many of the large dishes now to be seen in the museums of France and Germany may have reached the West by this route, for among the presents that the ‘Soldan’ of Egypt sent to Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1487, on the occasion of an embassy (in addition to some sheep with long ears and tails as big as their bodies), we find mention of ‘vasi grandi porcellana mai più veduti simili ne meglio lavorati’ (Marryat, p. 240, quoting a letter from Bibbiena to Clarice de’ Medici). Before this, in 1447, Charles VII. of France is said to have received from the same source ‘trois escuelles de pourcelaine de Sinant,’ besides ‘_platz, tongues verdes_’ (whatever they may be), and other vessels of the same material. Again, in 1487 porcelain is mentioned in the maritime laws of Barcelona among the exports from Egypt. In only one of these notices, however, is the Chinese origin of the porcelain expressly stated, so that in the other cases there remains a shadow of a doubt as to what kind of ware is in question. For we must remember that the word porcelain was at that time sometimes applied to Saracenic fayence. Indeed in the old French inventories quoted by the Marquis de Laborde, various kinds of shell-ware, such as frames inlaid with mother-of-pearl, are referred to as porcelain. It is doubtful whether we can point to a single specimen of porcelain in our European collections whose history can be traced back as far as the year 1500, nor can any exception be made to this statement in favour of anything to be found in the Treasury of St. Mark at Venice. With the exception of one small doubtful piece, I have been unable to discover any specimen of porcelain in that collection. As for the tradition concerning the little plate at Dresden inlaid with garnets cut into facettes--that it was brought back from the East by a crusader--I am afraid that this must go the way of so many similar stories. I have had an opportunity of examining this often-quoted example of early Chinese porcelain, as well as a cup similarly inlaid in the same collection, and I quite agree with Dr. Zimmermann, the Curator of the Museum, that the setting can hardly be earlier than the sixteenth century, and that there is nothing in the ware itself, a plain white Ting porcelain, to point to a great age.