2

port: He begged that the Pope would send as many as an hundred persons of our Christian faith; intelligent men, acquainted with the Seven Arts, well qualified to enter into controversy, and able clearly to prove by force of argument to idolaters and other kinds of folk, that the Law of Christ was best, and that all other religions were false and naught; and that if they would prove this, he and all under him would become Christians and the Church's liegemen. Finally he charged his Envoys to bring back to him some Oil of the Lamp which burns on the Sepulchre of our Lord at Jerusalem.'

NOTE 1.-The appearance of the Great Kaan's letter may be illustrated by two letters preserved in the French archives; one from Arghun Khan of Persia (1289), and the other from his son Oljaitu (1305), to Philip the Fair. These are both in the Mongol language, and, according to Abel Rémusat, in the Uigur character, the parent of the present Mongol writing. Facsimiles of the letters are given in Rémusat's paper on intercourse with Mongol Princes, in Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. vols. vii. and viii.

NOTE 2.-The "Seven Arts," from a date reaching nearly back to classical times, and down through the Middle Ages, expressed the whole circle of a liberal education, and it is to these Seven Arts that the degrees in arts were understood to apply. They were divided into the Trivium of Rhetoric, Logic, and Grammar, and the Quadrivium of Arithmetic, Astronomy, Music, and Geometry. The 38th epistle of Seneca was in many MSS. (according to Lipsius) entitled "L. Annaci Senecae Liber de Septem Artibus liberalibus." I do not find, however, that Seneca there mentions categorically more than five, viz., Grammar, Geometry, Music, Astronomy, and Arithmetic. In the 5th century we find the Seven Arts to form the successive subjects of the last seven books of the work of Martianus Capella, much used in the schools during the early Middle Ages. The Seven Arts will be found enumerated in the verses of Tzetzes (Chil. XI. 525), and allusions to them in the medieval romances are endless. Thus, in one of the "Gestes d'Alexandre," a chapter is headed “Comment Aristotle aprent à Alixandre les Sept Arts." In the tale of the Seven Wise Masters, Diocletian selects that number of tutors for his son, each to instruct him in one of the Seven Arts. In the romance of Erec and Eneide we have a dress on which the fairies had pourtrayed the Seven Arts (Franc-Michel, Recherches, &c. II. 82); in the Roman de Mahommet the young impostor is master of all the seven. See also Dante, Convito, Trat. II. c. 14.

NOTE 3.-The Chinghizide Princes were eminently liberal—or indifferent-in religion, and even after they became Mahomedan, which, however, the Eastern Branch never did, they were rarely and only by brief fits persecutors. Hence there was scarcely one of the nonMahomedan Khans of whose conversion to Christianity there were not stories spread. The first rumours of Chinghiz in the West were as of a Christian conqueror; tales may be found of the Christianity of Chagatai, Hulaku, Abaka, Arghun, Baidu, Ghazan, Sartak, Kuyuk, Mangu, Kublai, and one or two of the latter's successors in China, all probably false, with one or two doubtful exceptions.

CHAPTER VIII.

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.'

So they travelled on and on until they arrived at Layas in Hermenia, a journey which occupied them, I assure you, for three years. It took them so long because they could not always advance, 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 Book II. chap. vii.

NOTE-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. 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. It was the seat of a bishop, and the Venetians had a Bailo resident there.

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 xixth Canto of Ariosto, where Marfisa and Astolfo find on its shores a country of barbarous Amazons :

"Fatto è 'l porto a sembranza d' una luna," &c.

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 poor Turkmans, and standing inside the ruined walls of the castle. The latter was built by the Armenian kings from the remains of the

ancient city, and fragments of old columns are embedded in its walls of cut stone. The castle 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, p. 429-31; see also Beaufort's Karamania, near the end.)

HOW THE TWO BROTHERS CAME TO THE CITY OF ACRE.

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 **),' 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

So his answer to the two

for the whole of Christendom. 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. 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.' 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.