Way between T'swan-chau and
Chang-chau) as a great seat of this manufacture.
Looking, however, to the Ramusian interpolations, which do not indicate a
locality necessarily near Zayton, or even in Fo-kien, it is possible that
Murray is right in supposing the place intended in these to be really
King-te chen in Kiang-si, the great seat of the manufacture of genuine
porcelain, or rather its chief mart JAU-CHAU FU on the P'o-yang Lake.
The geographical indication of this city of porcelain, as at the place
where a branch of the River of Kinsay flows off towards Zayton, points to
a notion prevalent in the Middle Ages as to the interdivergence of rivers
in general, and especially of Chinese rivers. This notion will be found
well embodied in the Catalan Map, and something like it in the maps of the
Chinese themselves;[5] it is a ruling idea with Ibn Batuta, who, as we
have seen (in note 2), speaks of the River of Zayton as connected in the
interior with "the Great River," and who travels by this waterway
accordingly from Zayton to Kinsay, taking no notice of the mountains of
Fo-kien. So also (supra, p. 175) Rashiduddin had been led to suppose
that the Great Canal extended to Zayton.
