HOW THE GREAT KAAN GAVE THEM A TABLET OF GOLD, BEARING HIS
ORDERS IN THEIR BEHALF.
When the Prince had charged them with all his commission, he caused to
be given them a Tablet of Gold, on which was inscribed that the three
Ambassadors should be supplied with everything needful in all the
countries through which they should pass—with horses, with escorts,
and, in short, with whatever they should require. And when they had
made all needful preparations, the three Ambassadors took their leave
of the Emperor and set out.
When they had travelled I know not how many days, the Tartar Baron
fell sick, so that he could not ride, and being very ill, and unable
to proceed further, he halted at a certain city. So the Two Brothers
judged it best that they should leave him behind and proceed to carry
out their commission; and, as he was well content that they should
do so, they continued their journey. And I can assure you, that
whithersoever they went they were honourably provided with whatever
they stood in need of, or chose to command. And this was owing to that
Tablet of Authority from the Lord which they carried with them.{1}
So they travelled on and on until they arrived at Layas in Hermenia,
a journey which occupied them, I assure you, for three years.{2} It
took them so long because they could not always proceed, being stopped
sometimes by snow, or by heavy rains falling, or by great torrents
which they found in an impassable state.
NOTE 1.—On these Tablets, see a note under Bk. II. ch. vii.
NOTE 2.—AYAS, called also Ayacio, Aiazzo, Giazza, Glaza, La Jazza,
and _Layas_, occupied the site of ancient Aegae, and was the chief
port of Cilician Armenia, on the Gulf of Scanderoon. _Aegae_ had
been in the 5th century a place of trade with the West, and the
seat of a bishopric, as we learn from the romantic but incomplete
story of Mary, the noble slave-girl, told by Gibbon (ch. 33). As
Ayas it became in the latter part of the 13th century one of the
chief places for the shipment of Asiatic wares arriving through
Tabriz, and was much frequented by the vessels of the Italian
Republics. The Venetians had a _Bailo_ resident there.
[Illustration: Castle of Ayas.]
Ayas is the _Leyes_ of Chaucer’s Knight,—
(“At LEYES was he and at Satalie”)—
and the Layas of Froissart. (Bk. III. ch. xxii.) The Gulf of Layas
is described in the xix. Canto of Ariosto, where Mafisa and Astolfo
find on its shores a country of barbarous Amazons:—
“Fatto è ’l porto a sembranza d’una luna,” etc.
Marino Sanuto says of it: “Laiacio has a haven, and a shoal in
front of it that we might rather call a reef, and to this shoal
the hawsers of vessels are moored whilst the anchors are laid out
towards the land.” (II. IV. ch. xxvi.)
The present Ayas is a wretched village of some 15 huts, occupied
by about 600 Turkmans, and standing inside the ruined walls of the
castle. This castle, which is still in good condition, was built
by the Armenian kings, and restored by Sultan Suleiman; it was
constructed from the remains of the ancient city; fragments of
old columns are embedded in its walls of cut stone. It formerly
communicated by a causeway with an advanced work on an island
before the harbour. The ruins of the city occupy a large space.
(_Langlois, V. en Cilicie_, pp. 429–31; see also _Beaufort’s
Karamania_, near the end.) A plan of Ayas will be found at the
beginning of Bk. I.—H. Y. and H. C.