After the above date the accounts open to us become slightly contradictory. A maker of tiles is said to have come from Corea, about the year 590, to Japan, to teach his business; that about sixty years later the experiment of tiling a temple roof was first tried, and that the pagoda of a temple in Yamato was built of brick. These assertions point to a relatively backward state of ceramic art in Japan as compared with China; and if tiles and bricks were still novelties in the former country, we are quite prepared to hear that it was only in the year 724 that the monk or priest Giyoki introduced the potters’ wheel. This same individual apparently figures in another account, under the name Gyoguy, as a Corean priest of Buddha, who spread the knowledge of making “porcelain.” In the ninth century the number of factories had greatly increased; but native skill does not appear to have developed to any great extent, although an imperial official superintended the trade. Toward the earlier part of the thirteenth century, Kato Shirozayemon, not being content with the rude works he was turning out, called _Koutsi fakata_, pieces with worn orifice, undertook the journey to China, in the company of a priest named Fogen, to acquire, if possible, additional skill. In this he was successful, and on his return settled at Seto, in the province of Owari, now celebrated for its porcelain. Several authors speak of the earlier wares of Japan as porcelain; and Jacquemart says that Kato Shirozayemon returned with _all_ the secrets of the art. The question occurs, Is it likely, that, if Japan was at the beginning of our era acquainted to any extent with making porcelain, it would, after experimenting for twelve centuries, be so dependent upon Chinese teaching as to make Kato Shiro’s journey necessary? The probability is the other way. More than that, even the last named traveller cannot, without question, be conceded to have mastered the secret of making porcelain. The Japanese say that he only made stone-ware. Evidence to the same effect is deducible from a Japanese custom. Tea was not introduced from China until the beginning of the thirteenth century, about the time of Kato Shiro’s journey. In or about 1450, the Shiogun, or Tycoon, instituted the “Tea-parties” called _Cha-no-yu_. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, under Hide-yoshi, the ceremonial was improved. The guests drank out of a bowl of common pottery. These bowls were sometimes imported from Siam and other countries, and vessels of “raku” were made for the same purpose. This “raku” was a ware introduced by a Corean called Ameya, about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is said that his descendants of the eleventh generation still pursue the trade in Kioto. Raku is nothing more than a lead-glazed earthen-ware (Fig. 111); and if porcelain was known even at that late date, it is hard to understand why the Tycoon should have honored Ameya with a gold