Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.)

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The brig of war, in which they sailed, having been ordered to convoy a
fleet of small merchant-men to Patras and Prevesa, they remained, for
two or three days, at anchor off the former place. From thence,
proceeding to their ultimate destination, and catching a sunset view
of Missolonghi in their way, they landed, on the 29th of September, at
Prevesa.

The route which Lord Byron now took through Albania, as well as those
subsequent journeys through other parts of Turkey, which he performed
in company with his friend Mr. Hobhouse, may be traced, by such as are
desirous of details on the subject, in the account which the latter
gentleman has given of his travels; an account which, interesting from
its own excellence in every merit that should adorn such a work,
becomes still more so from the feeling that Lord Byron is, as it were,
present through its pages, and that we there follow his first
youthful footsteps into the land with whose name he has intertwined
his own for ever. As I am enabled, however, by the letters of the
noble poet to his mother, as well as by others, still more curious,
which are now, for the first time, published, to give his own rapid
and lively sketches of his wanderings, I shall content myself, after
this general reference to the volume of Mr. Hobhouse, with such
occasional extracts from its pages as may throw light upon the letters
of his friend.

LETTER 40.

TO MRS. BYRON.

"Prevesa, November 12. 1809.

"My dear Mother,

"I have now been some time in Turkey: this place is on the coast, but
I have traversed the interior of the province of Albania on a visit to
the Pacha. I left Malta in the Spider, a brig of war, on the 21st of
September, and arrived in eight days at Prevesa. I thence have been
about 150 miles, as far as Tepaleen, his Highness's country palace,
where I stayed three days. The name of the Pacha is _Ali_, and he is
considered a man of the first abilities: he governs the whole of
Albania (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus, and part of Macedonia. His
son, Vely Pacha, to whom he has given me letters, governs the Morea,
and has great influence in Egypt; in short, he is one of the most
powerful men in the Ottoman empire. When I reached Yanina, the
capital, after a journey of three days over the mountains, through a
country of the most picturesque beauty, I found that Ali Pacha was
with his array in Illyricum, besieging Ibrahim Pacha in the castle of
Berat. He had heard that an Englishman of rank was in his dominions,
and had left orders in Yanina with the commandant to provide a house,
and supply me with every kind of necessary _gratis_; and, though I
have been allowed to make presents to the slaves, &c., I have not been
permitted to pay for a single article of household consumption.

"I rode out on the vizier's horses, and saw the palaces of himself and
grandsons: they are splendid, but too much ornamented with silk and
gold. I then went over the mountains through Zitza, a village with a
Greek monastery (where I slept on my return), in the most beautiful
situation (always excepting Cintra, in Portugal) I ever beheld. In
nine days I reached Tepaleen. Our journey was much prolonged by the
torrents that had fallen from the mountains and intersected the roads.
I shall never forget the singular scene[126] on entering Tepaleen at
five in the afternoon, as the sun was going down. It brought to my
mind (with some change of _dress_, however) Scott's description of
Branksome Castle in his _Lay_, and the feudal system. The Albanians,
in their dresses, (the most magnificent in the world, consisting of a
long _white kilt_, gold-worked cloak, crimson velvet gold-laced jacket
and waistcoat, silver mounted pistols and daggers,) the Tartars with
their high caps, the Turks in their vast pelisses and turbans, the
soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the former in groups in an
immense large open gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed
in a kind of cloister below it, two hundred steeds ready caparisoned
to move in a moment, couriers entering or passing out with
despatches, the kettle-drums beating, boys calling the hour from the
minaret of the mosque, altogether, with the singular appearance of the
building itself, formed a new and delightful spectacle to a stranger.
I was conducted to a very handsome apartment, and my health enquired
after by the vizier's secretary, 'a-la-mode Turque!'

"The next day I was introduced to Ali Pacha. I was dressed in a full
suit of staff uniform, with a very magnificent sabre, &c. The vizier
received me in a large room paved with marble; a fountain was playing
in the centre; the apartment was surrounded by scarlet ottomans. He
received me standing, a wonderful compliment from a Mussulman, and
made me sit down on his right hand. I have a Greek interpreter for
general use, but a physician of Ali's, named Femlario, who understands
Latin, acted for me on this occasion. His first question was, why, at
so early an age, I left my country?--(the Turks have no idea of
travelling for amusement.) He then said, the English minister, Captain
Leake, had told him I was of a great family, and desired his respects
to my mother; which I now, in the name of Ali Pacha, present to you.
He said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had small ears,
curling hair, and little white hands,[127] and expressed himself
pleased with my appearance and garb. He told me to consider him as a
father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me as his son.
Indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared
sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day. He begged me to
visit him often, and at night, when he was at leisure. I then, after
coffee and pipes, retired for the first time. I saw him thrice
afterwards. It is singular, that the Turks, who have no hereditary
dignities, and few great families, except the Sultans, pay so much
respect to birth; for I found my pedigree more regarded than my
title.[128]

"To-day I saw the remains of the town of Actium, near which Antony
lost the world, in a small bay, where two frigates could hardly
manoeuvre: a broken wall is the sole remnant. On another part of the
gulf stand the ruins of Nicopolis, built by Augustus in honour of his
victory. Last night I was at a Greek marriage; but this and a thousand
things more I have neither time nor space to describe.

"I am going to-morrow, with a guard of fifty men, to Patras in the
Morea, and thence to Athens, where I shall winter. Two days ago I was
nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war, owing to the ignorance of the
captain and crew, though the storm was not violent. Fletcher yelled
after his wife, the Greeks called on all the saints, the Mussulmans on
Alla; the captain burst into tears and ran below deck, telling us to
call on God; the sails were split, the main-yard shivered, the wind
blowing fresh, the night setting in, and all our chance was to make
Corfu, which is in possession of the French, or (as Fletcher
pathetically termed it) 'a watery grave.' I did what I could to
console Fletcher, but finding him incorrigible, wrapped myself up in
my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait
the worst.[129] I have learnt to philosophise in my travels, and if I
had not, complaint was useless. Luckily the wind abated and only drove
us on the coast of Suli, on the main land, where we landed, and
proceeded, by the help of the natives, to Prevesa again; but I shall
not trust Turkish sailors in future, though the Pacha had ordered one
of his own galliots to take me to Patras. I am therefore going as far
as Missolonghi by land, and there have only to cross a small gulf to
get to Patras.

"Fletcher's next epistle will be full of marvels: we were one night
lost for nine hours in the mountains in a thunder-storm,[130] and
since nearly wrecked. In both cases Fletcher was sorely bewildered,
from apprehensions of famine and banditti in the first, and drowning
in the second instance. His eyes were a little hurt by the lightning,
or crying (I don't know which), but are now recovered. When you write,
address to me at Mr. Strane's, English consul, Patras, Morea.

"I could tell you I know not how many incidents that I think would
amuse you, but they crowd on my mind as much as they would swell my
paper, and I can neither arrange them in the one, nor put them down on
the other except in the greatest confusion. I like the Albanians much;
they are not all Turks; some tribes are Christians. But their religion
makes little difference in their manner or conduct. They are esteemed
the best troops in the Turkish service. I lived on my route, two days
at once, and three days again in a barrack at Salora, and never found
soldiers so tolerable, though I have been in the garrisons of
Gibraltar and Malta, and seen Spanish, French, Sicilian, and British
troops in abundance. I have had nothing stolen, and was always welcome
to their provision and milk. Not a week ago an Albanian chief, (every
village has its chief, who is called Primate,) after helping us out of
the Turkish galley in her distress, feeding us, and lodging my suite,
consisting of Fletcher, a Greek, two Athenians, a Greek priest, and my
companion, Mr. Hobhouse, refused any compensation but a written paper
stating that I was well received; and when I pressed him to accept a
few sequins, 'No,' he replied; 'I wish you to love me, not to pay me.'
These are his words.

"It is astonishing how far money goes in this country. While I was in
the capital I had nothing to pay by the vizier's order; but since,
though I have generally had sixteen horses, and generally six or
seven men, the expense has not been _half_ as much as staying only
three weeks in Malta, though Sir A. Ball, the governor, gave me a
house for nothing, and I had only _one servant_. By the by, I expect
H---- to remit regularly; for I am not about to stay in this province
for ever. Let him write to me at Mr. Strane's, English consul, Patras.
The fact is, the fertility of the plains is wonderful, and specie is
scarce, which makes this remarkable cheapness. I am going to Athens to
study modern Greek, which differs much from the ancient, though
radically similar. I have no desire to return to England, nor shall
_I_, unless compelled by absolute want, and H----'s neglect; but I
shall not enter into Asia for a year or two, as I have much to see in
Greece, and I may perhaps cross into Africa, at least the Egyptian
part. Fletcher, like all Englishmen, is very much dissatisfied, though
a little reconciled to the Turks by a present of eighty piastres from
the vizier, which, if you consider every thing, and the value of
specie here, is nearly worth ten guineas English. He has suffered
nothing but from cold, heat, and vermin, which those who lie in
cottages and cross mountains in a cold country must undergo, and of
which I have equally partaken with himself; but he is not valiant, and
is afraid of robbers and tempests. I have no one to be remembered to
in England, and wish to hear nothing from it, but that you are well,
and a letter or two on business from H----, whom you may tell to
write. I will write when I can, and beg you to believe me,

Your affectionate son,

"BYRON."

About the middle of November, the young traveller took his departure
from Prevesa (the place where the foregoing letter was written), and
proceeded, attended by his guard of fifty Albanians,[131] through
Acarnania and AEtolia, towards the Morea.

"And therefore did he take a trusty band
To traverse Acarnania's forest wide,
In war well season'd, and with labours tann'd,
Till he did greet white Achelous' tide,
And from his further bank AEtolia's wolds espied."

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto II.

His description of the night-scene at Utraikey (a small place situated
in one of the bays of the Gulf of Arta) is, no doubt, vividly in the
recollection of every reader of these pages; nor will it diminish their
enjoyment of the wild beauties of that picture to be made acquainted
with the real circumstances on which it was founded, in the following
animated details of the same scene by his fellow-traveller:--

"In the evening the gates were secured, and preparations were made for
feeding our Albanians. A goat was killed and roasted whole, and four
fires were kindled in the yard, round which the soldiers seated
themselves in parties. After eating and drinking, the greater part of
them assembled round the largest of the fires, and whilst ourselves
and the elders of the party were seated on the ground, danced round
the blaze to their own songs, in the manner before described, but
with an astonishing energy. All their songs were relations of some
robbing exploits. One of them, which detained them more than an hour,
began thus:--'When we set out from Parga there were sixty of
us:'--then came the burden of the verse,

"'Robbers all at Parga!
Robbers all at Parga!

"'{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}!
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}
{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}!'

And as they roared out this stave they whirled round the fire, dropped
and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled round as the chorus
was again repeated. The rippling of the waves upon the pebbly margin
where we were seated filled up the pauses of the song with a milder
and not more monotonous music. The night was very dark, but by the
flashes of the fires we caught a glimpse of the woods, the rocks, and
the lake, which, together with the wild appearance of the dancers,
presented us with a scene that would have made a fine picture in the
hands of such an artist as the author of the Mysteries of Udolpho."

Having traversed Acarnania, the travellers passed to the AEtolian side
of the Achelous, and on the 21st of November reached Missolonghi. And
here, it is impossible not to pause, and send a mournful thought
forward to the visit which, fifteen years after, he paid to this same
spot, when, in the full meridian both of his age and fame, he came to
lay down his life as the champion of that land, through which he now
wandered a stripling and a stranger. Could some spirit have here
revealed to him the events of that interval,--have shown him, on the
one side, the triumphs that awaited him, the power his varied genius
would acquire over all hearts, alike to elevate or depress, to darken
or illuminate them,--and then place, on the other side, all the
penalties of this gift, the waste and wear of the heart through the
imagination, the havoc of that perpetual fire within, which, while it
dazzles others, consumes the possessor,--the invidiousness of such an
elevation in the eyes of mankind, and the revenge they take on him who
compels them to look up to it,--_would_ he, it may be asked, have
welcomed glory on such conditions? would he not rather have felt that
the purchase was too costly, and that such warfare with an ungrateful
world, while living, would be ill recompensed even by the immortality
it might award him afterwards?

At Missolonghi he dismissed his whole band of Albanians, with the
exception of one, named Dervish, whom he took into his service, and
who, with Basilius, the attendant allotted him by Ali Pacha, continued
with him during the remainder of his stay in the East. After a
residence of near a fortnight at Patras, he next directed his course
to Vostizza,--on approaching which town the snowy peak of Parnassus,
towering on the other side of the Gulf, first broke on his eyes; and
in two days after, among the sacred hollows of Delphi, the stanzas,
with which that vision had inspired him, were written.[132]

It was at this time, that, in riding along the sides of Parnassus, he
saw an unusually large flight of eagles in the air,--a phenomenon
which seems to have affected his imagination with a sort of poetical
superstition, as he, more than once, recurs to the circumstance in his
journals. Thus, "Going to the fountain of Delphi (Castri) in 1809, I
saw a flight of twelve eagles (H. says they were vultures--at least in
conversation), and I seised the omen. On the day before I composed the
lines to Parnassus (in Childe Harold), and, on beholding the birds,
had a hope that Apollo had accepted my homage. I have at least had the
name and fame of a poet during the poetical part of life (from twenty
to thirty);--whether it will _last_ is another matter."

He has also, in reference to this journey from Patras, related a
little anecdote of his own sportsmanship, which, by all _but_
sportsmen, will be thought creditable to his humanity. "The last bird
I ever fired at was an eaglet, on the shore of the Gulf of Lepanto,
near Vostizza. It was only wounded, and I tried to save it,--the eye
was so bright. But it pined, and died in a few days; and I never did
since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird."

To a traveller in Greece, there are few things more remarkable than
the diminutive extent of those countries, which have filled such a
wide space in fame. "A man might very easily," says Mr. Hobhouse, "at
a moderate pace ride from Livadia to Thebes and back again between
breakfast and dinner; and the tour of all Boeotia might certainly be
made in two days without baggage." Having visited, within a very short
space of time, the fountains of Memory and Oblivion at Livadia, and
the haunts of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes, the travellers at length
turned towards Athens, the city of their dreams, and, after crossing
Mount Cithaeron, arrived in sight of the ruins of Phyle, on the evening
of Christmas-day, 1809.

Though the poet has left, in his own verses, an ever-during testimony
of the enthusiasm with which he now contemplated the scenes around
him, it is not difficult to conceive that, to superficial observers,
Lord Byron at Athens might have appeared an untouched spectator of
much that throws ordinary travellers into, at least, verbal raptures.
For pretenders of every sort, whether in taste or morals, he
entertained, at all times, the most profound contempt; and if,
frequently, his real feelings of admiration disguised themselves under
an affected tone of indifference and mockery, it was out of pure
hostility to the cant of those, who, he well knew, praised without any
feeling at all. It must be owned, too, that while he thus justly
despised the raptures of the common herd of travellers, there were
some pursuits, even of the intelligent and tasteful, in which he took
but very little interest. With the antiquarian and connoisseur his
sympathies were few and feeble:--"I am not a collector," he says, in
one of his notes on Childe Harold, "nor an admirer of collections."
For antiquities, indeed, unassociated with high names and deeds, he
had no value whatever; and of works of art he was content to admire
the general effect, without professing, or aiming at, any knowledge of
the details. It was to nature, in her lonely scenes of grandeur and
beauty, or as at Athens, shining, unchanged, among the ruins of glory
and of art, that the true fervid homage of his whole soul was paid. In
the few notices of his travels, appended to Childe Harold, we find the
sites and scenery of the different places he visited far more fondly
dwelt upon than their classic or historical associations. To the
valley of Zitza he reverts, both in prose and verse, with a much
warmer recollection than to Delphi or the Troad; and the plain of
Athens itself is chiefly praised by him as "a more glorious prospect
than even Cintra or Istambol." Where, indeed, could Nature assert such
claims to his worship as in scenes like these, where he beheld her
blooming, in indestructible beauty, amid the wreck of all that man
deems most worthy of duration? "Human institutions," says Harris,
"perish, but Nature is permanent:"--or, as Lord Byron has amplified
this thought[133] in one of his most splendid passages:--

"Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair."

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto II.

At Athens, on this his first visit, he made a stay of between two and
three months, not a day of which he let pass without employing some of
its hours in visiting the grand monuments of ancient genius around
him, and calling up the spirit of other times among their ruins. He
made frequently, too, excursions to different parts of Attica; and it
was in one of his visits to Cape Colonna, at this time, that he was
near being seized by a party of Mainotes, who were lying hid in the
caves under the cliff of Minerva Sunias. These pirates, it appears,
were only deterred from attacking him (as a Greek, who was then their
prisoner, informed him afterwards) by a supposition that the two
Albanians, whom they saw attending him, were but part of a complete
guard he had at hand.

In addition to all the magic of its names and scenes, the city of
Minerva possessed another sort of attraction for the poet, to which,
wherever he went, his heart, or rather imagination, was but too
sensible. His pretty song, "Maid of Athens, ere we part," is said to
have been addressed to the eldest daughter of the Greek lady at whose
house he lodged; and that the fair Athenian, when he composed these
verses, may have been the tenant, for the time being, of his fancy, is
highly possible. Theodora Macri, his hostess, was the widow of the
late English vice-consul, and derived a livelihood from letting,
chiefly to English travellers, the apartments which Lord Byron and his
friend now occupied, and of which the latter gentleman gives us the
following description;--"Our lodgings consisted of a sitting-room and
two bed-rooms, opening into a court-yard where there were five or six
lemon-trees, from which, during our residence in the place, was
plucked the fruit that seasoned the pilaf, and other national dishes
served up at our frugal table."

The fame of an illustrious poet is not confined to his own person and
writings, but imparts a share of its splendour to whatever has been,
even remotely, connected with him; and not only ennobles the objects
of his friendships, his loves, and even his likings, but on every spot
where he has sojourned through life, leaves traces of its light that
do not easily pass away. Little did the Maid of Athens, while
listening innocently to the compliments of the young Englishman,
foresee that a day would come when he should make her name and home so
celebrated that travellers, on their return from Greece, would find
few things more interesting to their hearers than such details of
herself and her family as the following:--

"Our servant, who had gone before to procure accommodation, met us at
the gate and conducted us to Theodora Macri, the Consulina's, where we
at present live. This lady is the widow of the consul, and has three
lovely daughters; the eldest celebrated for her beauty, and said to be
the subject of those stanzas by Lord Byron,--

"'Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give me back my heart!' &c.

"At Orchomenus, where stood the Temple of the Graces, I was tempted to
exclaim, 'Whither have the Graces fled?'--Little did I expect to find
them here. Yet here comes one of them with golden cups and coffee, and
another with a book. The book is a register of names, some of which
are far sounded by the voice of fame. Among them is Lord Byron's,
connected with some lines which I shall send you:--

"'Fair Albion, smiling, sees her son depart,
To trace the birth and nursery of art;
Noble his object, glorious is his aim,
He comes to Athens, and he--writes his name.'

"The counterpoise by Lord Byron:--

"'This modest bard, like many a bard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;
But yet whoe'er he be, to say no worse,
His name would bring more credit than his verse.'

"The mention of the three Athenian Graces will, I can foresee, rouse
your curiosity, and fire your imagination; and I may despair of your
farther attention till I attempt to give you some description of them.
Their apartment is immediately opposite to ours, and if you could see
them, as we do now, through the gently waving aromatic plants before
our window, you would leave your heart in Athens.

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