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 e ‘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.

CHAPTER IX.

HOW THE TWO BROTHERS CAME TO THE CITY OF ACRE.

[Ilustration:  ACRE AS IT WAS WHEN LOST (A.D. 1291).  FROM THE PLAN GIVEN BY MARINO SANUTO]

They departed from Layas and came to ACRE, arriving there in the month of April, in the year of Christ 1269, and then they learned that the Pope was dead.  And when they found that the Pope was dead (his name was Pope * *), [NOTE 1] they went to a certain wise Churchman who was Legate for the whole kingdom of Egypt, and a man of great authority, by name THEOBALD OF PIACENZA, and told him of the mission on which they were come.  When the Legate heard their story, he was greatly surprised, and deemed the thing to be of great honour and advantage for the whole of Christendom.  So his answer to the two Ambassador Brothers was this:  “Gentlemen, ye see that the Pope is dead; wherefore ye must needs have patience until a new Pope be made, and then shall ye be able to execute your charge.”  Seeing well enough that what the Legate said was just, they observed:  “But while the Pope is a-making, we may as well go to Venice and visit our households.”  So they departed from Acre and went to Negropont, and from Negropont they continued their voyage to Venice.[NOTE 2] On their arrival there, Messer Nicolas found that his wife was dead, and that she had left behind her a son of fifteen years of age, whose name was MARCO; and ’tis of him that this Book tells.[NOTE 3] The Two Brothers abode at Venice a couple of years, tarrying until a Pope should be made.

NOTE 1.—­The deceased Pope’s name is omitted both in the Geog.  Text and in Pauthier’s, clearly because neither Rusticiano nor Polo remembered it.  It is supplied correctly in the Crusca Italian as Clement, and in Ramusio as Clement IV.