Persian natural porcelain, about which writers have disputed, and called by the Persians _tchini_, is closely related to the Chinese. An entire class is characterized by its decoration of incised lines and blue painting under the glaze. The paste is somewhat coarse, and lacks cohesion. As to the antiquity of this quality, all that can be said is that it was produced a long time prior to the fifteenth century. Red and gold are seldom employed with blue, but rather characterize a distinct class. Green was much more indiscriminately employed, as, for example, with blue, brown, red, and gold. The céladons are to be distinguished from the Chinese, not by the color--for they show the beautiful old green of their Chinese counterparts--but by the design and form. All that remains to be added is, that, like every other people to whom the higher secrets of ceramic art were open, the Persians attached a very great value to the best works in both porcelain and pottery. The former is, in their literature, constantly associated with gold and other precious materials. BOOK III.--EUROPE. CHAPTER I. THE FOUNTAINS OF EUROPEAN ART. Routes by which Art Travelled.--Their Point of Convergence.--Cyprus: Its History.--The Successive Nations Governing It.--The Strata of Ancient Civilization found within its Shores.--The Discoveries of Cesnola.--Larnaca.--Dali.--Athieno.--Curium.--Progress of Cypriote Pottery.--Early Greek Art: Its Connection with Assyria and Egypt.--Phœnician and Assyrian Art.--General Deductions.--Asia Minor.--Oriental Art turning in various Streams to Greece.--What Greece Rejected, Persia Seized upon.--Persia’s Contributions to Ceramic Art.--History in Reference to its Art.--Effect of Conquest.--What Persia Taught the Arabs.--Spread of Persian Art by the Saracens.--Rhodes.--Damascus.--Progress of Saracenic Art.--The North of Africa.--Metallic Lustre and Stanniferous Enamel.--Hispano-Moresque.--Early Spain.--Persian Influence upon Europe.