Note 35 — Chapter II · HSÜAN TÊ (1426–1435)

According to Bushell, O. C. A., p. 130, “cobalt blue, as we learn from the official annals of the Sung dynasty (Sung shih, bk. 490, fol. 12), was brought to China by the Arabs under the name of wu ming yi.” This takes it back to the tenth century. Wu ming yi (nameless rarity) was afterwards used as a general name for cobalt blue, and was applied to the native mineral. The name was sometimes varied to wu ming tzŭ. Though we are not expressly told the source of the su-ni-p’o blue, it is easily guessed. For the Ming Annals (bk. 325) state that among the objects brought as tribute by envoys from Sumatra were “precious stones, agate, crystal, carbonate of copper, rhinoceros horn, and hui hui ch’ing (Mohammedan blue).” See W. P. Groeneveldt, Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, vol. xxxix., p. 92. These envoys arrived in 1426, 1430, 1433, 1434, and for the last time in 1486. Sumatra was a meeting-place of the traders from East and West, and no doubt the Mohammedan blue was brought thither by Arab merchants. Possibly some of the mineral was brought back by the celebrated eunuch Chêng Ho, who led an expedition to Sumatra in the Yung Lo period. See also p. 30.