CHAPTER X

Sails from Malta to Prevesa—Lands at Patras—Sails again—Passes Ithaca—Arrival at Prevesa

It was on the 19th of September, 1809, that Byron sailed in the Spider brig from Malta for Prevesa, and on the morning of the fourth day after, he first saw the mountains of Greece; next day he landed at Patras, and walked for some time among the currant grounds between the town and the shore.  Around him lay one of the noblest landscapes in the world, and afar in the north-east rose the purple summits of the Grecian mountains.

Having re-embarked, the Spider proceeded towards her destination; the poet not receiving much augmentation to his ideas of the grandeur of the ancients, from the magnitude of their realms and states.  Ithaca, which he doubtless regarded with wonder and disappointment, as he passed its cliffy shores, was then in the possession of the French.  In the course of a month after, the kingdom of Ulysses surrendered to a British serjeant and seven men.

   Childe Harold sail’d, and pass’d the barren spot,
   Where sad Penelope o’erlook’d the wave;
   And onward view’d the mount, not yet forgot.
   The lover’s refuge, and the Lesbian’s grave.
   But when he saw the evening star above
   Leucadia’s far-projecting rock of woe,
   And hail’d the last resort of fruitless love,
   He felt, or deem’d he felt, no common glow;
   And as the stately vessel glided slow
   Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount,
   He watch’d the billows’ melancholy flow,
   And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont—
More placid seem’d his eye, and smooth his pallid front.

At seven in the evening, of the same day on which he passed Leucadia, the vessel came to anchor off Prevesa.  The day was wet and gloomy, and the appearance of the town was little calculated to bespeak cheerfulness.  But the novelty in the costume and appearance of the inhabitants and their dwellings, produced an immediate effect on the imagination of Byron, and we can trace the vivid impression animating and adorning his descriptions.

   The wild Albanian, kirtled to his knee,
   With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun,
   And gold-embroider’d garments, fair to see;
   The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;
   The Delhi with his cap of terror on,
   And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek,
   And swarthy Nubia’s mutilated son;
   The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak,
Master of all around, too potent to be meek.

Having partaken of a consecutive dinner, dish after dish, with the brother of the English consul, the travellers proceeded to visit the Governor of the town: he resided within the enclosure of a fort, and they were conducted towards him by a long gallery, open on one side, and through several large unfurnished rooms.  In the last of this series, the Governor received them with the wonted solemn civility of the Turks, and entertained them with pipes and coffee.  Neither his appearance, nor the style of the entertainment, were distinguished by any display of Ottoman grandeur; he was seated on a sofa in the midst of a group of shabby Albanian guards, who had but little reverence for the greatness of the guests, as they sat down beside them, and stared and laughed at their conversation with the Governor.

But if the circumstances and aspect of the place derived no importance from visible splendour, every object around was enriched with stories and classical recollections.  The battle of Actium was fought within the gulf.

   Ambracia’s gulf behold, where once was lost
   A world for woman—lovely, harmless thing!
   In yonder rippling bay, their naval host
   Did many a Roman chief and Asian king
   To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring.
   Look where the second Cæsar’s trophies rose!
   Now, like the lands that rear’d them, withering;
   Imperial monarchs doubling human woes!
God! was Thy globe ordained for such to win and lose?

Having inspected the ruins of Nicopolis, which are more remarkable for their desultory extent and scattered remnants, than for any remains of magnificence or of beauty,

   Childe Harold pass’d o’er many a mount sublime,
   Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales.
   Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales
   Are rarely seen; nor can fair Tempe boast
   A charm they know not; loved Parnassus fails,
   Though classic ground and consecrated most,
To match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast.

In this journey he was still accompanied by Mr Hobhouse.  They had provided themselves with a Greek to serve as a dragoman.  With this person they soon became dissatisfied, in consequence of their general suspicion of Greek integrity, and because of the necessary influence which such an appendage acquires in the exercise of his office.  He is the tongue and purse-bearer of his master; he procures him lodging, food, horses, and all conveniences; must support his dignity with the Turks—a difficult task in those days for a Greek—and his manifold trusts demand that he should be not only active and ingenious, but prompt and resolute.  In the qualifications of this essential servant, the travellers were not fortunate—he never lost an opportunity of pilfering;—he was, however, zealous, bustling, and talkative, and withal good-humoured; and, having his mind intent on one object—making money—was never lazy nor drunken, negligent nor unprepared.

On the 1st of October they embarked, and sailed up the Gulf of Salona, where they were shown into an empty barrack for lodgings.  In this habitation twelve Albanian soldiers and an officer were quartered, who behaved towards them with civility.  On their entrance, the officer gave them pipes and coffee, and after they had dined in their own apartment, he invited them to spend the evening with him, and they condescended to partake of his hospitality.

Such instances as these in ordinary biography would be without interest; but when it is considered how firmly the impression of them was retained in the mind of the poet, and how intimately they entered into the substance of his reminiscences of Greece, they acquire dignity, and become epochal in the history of the development of his intellectual powers.

“All the Albanians,” says Mr Hobhouse, “strut very much when they walk, projecting their chests, throwing back their heads, and moving very slowly from side to side.  Elmas (as the officer was called) had this strut more than any man perhaps we saw afterwards; and as the sight was then quite new to us, we could not help staring at the magisterial and superlatively dignified air of a man with great holes in his elbows, and looking altogether, as to his garment, like what we call a bull-beggar.”  Mr Hobhouse describes him as a captain, but by the number of men under him, he could have been of no higher rank than serjeant.  Captains are centurions.

After supper, the officer washed his hands with soap, inviting the travellers to do the same, for they had eaten a little with him; he did not, however, give the soap, but put it on the floor with an air so remarkable, as to induce Mr Hobhouse to inquire the meaning of it, and he was informed that there is a superstition in Turkey against giving soap: it is thought it will wash away love.

Next day it rained, and the travellers were obliged to remain under shelter.  The evening was again spent with the soldiers, who did their utmost to amuse them with Greek and Albanian songs and freaks of jocularity.

In the morning of the 3rd of October they set out for Arta, with ten horses; four for themselves and servants, four for their luggage, and two for two soldiers whom they were induced to take with them as guards.  Byron takes no notice of his visit to Arta in Childe Harold; but Mr Hobhouse has given a minute account of the town.  They met there with nothing remarkable.

The remainder of the journey to Joannina, the capital then of the famous Ali Pasha, was rendered unpleasant by the wetness of the weather; still it was impossible to pass through a country so picturesque in its features, and rendered romantic by the traditions of robberies and conflicts, without receiving impressions of that kind of imagery which constitutes the embroidery on the vestment of poetry.

The first view of Joannina seen in the morning light, or glittering in the setting sun, is lively and alluring.  The houses, domes, and minarets, shining through gardens of orange and lemon trees and groves of cypresses; the lake, spreading its broad mirror at the foot of the town, and the mountains rising abrupt around, all combined to present a landscape new and beautiful.  Indeed, where may be its parallel? the lake was the Acherusian, Mount Pindus was in sight, and the Elysian fields of mythology spread in the lovely plains over which they passed in approaching the town.

On entering Joannina, they were appalled by a spectacle characteristic of the country.  Opposite a butcher’s shop, they beheld hanging from the boughs of a tree a man’s arm, with part of the side torn from the body.  How long is it since Temple Bar, in the very heart of London, was adorned with the skulls of the Scottish noblemen who were beheaded for their loyalty to the son and representative of their ancient kings!

The object of the visit to Joannina was to see Ali Pasha, in those days the most celebrated Vizier in all the western provinces of the Ottoman empire; but he was then at Tepellené.  The luxury of resting, however, in a capital, was not to be resisted, and they accordingly suspended their journey until they had satisfied their curiosity with an inspection of every object which merited attention.  Of Joannina, it may be said, they were almost the discoverers, so little was known of it in England—I may say in Western Europe—previous to their visit.

The palace and establishment of Ali Pasha were of regal splendour, combining with Oriental pomp the elegance of the Occident, and the travellers were treated by the Vizier’s officers with all the courtesy due to the rank of Lord Byron, and every facility was afforded them to prosecute their journey.  The weather, however—the season being far advanced—was wet and unsettled, and they suffered more fatigue and annoyance than travellers for information or pleasure should have had to encounter.

The journey from Joannina to Zitza is among the happiest sketches in the Pilgrimage of Childe Harold.

   He pass’d bleak Pindus, Acherusia’s lake,
   And left the primal city of the land,
   And onwards did his farther journey take
   To greet Albania’s chief, whose dread command
   Is lawless law; for with a bloody hand
   He sways a nation, turbulent and bold:
   Yet here and there some daring mountain-band
   Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold
Hurl their defiance far, nor yield unless to gold.

   Monastic Zitza! from thy shady brow,
   Thou small, but favour’d spot of holy ground!
   Where’er we gaze, above, around, below,
   What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found;
   Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound;
   And bluest skies that harmonize the whole.
   Beneath, the distant torrent’s rushing sound
   Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll
Between those hanging rocks that shock yet please the soul.

In the course of this journey the poet happened to be alone with his guides, when they lost their way during a tremendous thunderstorm, and he has commemorated the circumstance in the spirited stanzas beginning—

Chill and mink is the nightly blast.

CHAPTER XI

Halt at Zitza—The River Acheron—Greek Wine—A Greek Chariot—Arrival at Tepellené—The Vizier’s Palace

The travellers, on their arrival at Zitza, went to the monastery to solicit accommodation; and after some parley with one of the monks, through a small grating in a door plated with iron, on which marks of violence were visible, and which, before the country had been tranquillised under the vigorous dominion of Ali Pasha, had been frequently battered in vain by the robbers who then infested the neighbourhood.  The prior, a meek and lowly man, entertained them in a warm chamber with grapes and a pleasant white wine, not trodden out by the feet, as he informed them, but expressed by the hand.  To this gentle and kind host Byron alludes in his description of “Monastic Zitza.”

   Amid the grove that crowns yon tufted hill,
   Which, were it not for many a mountain nigh
   Rising in lofty ranks, and loftier still,
   Might well itself be deem’d of dignity;
   The convent’s white walls glisten fair on high:
   Here dwells the caloyer, nor rude is he,
   Nor niggard of his cheer; the passer-by
   Is welcome still; nor heedless will he flee
From hence, if he delight kind Nature’s sheen to see.

Having halted a night at Zitza, the travellers proceeded on their journey next morning, by a road which led through the vineyards around the villages, and the view from a barren hill, which they were obliged to cross, is described with some of the most forcible touches of the poet’s pencil.

   Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight,
   Nature’s volcanic amphitheatre,
   Chimera’s Alps, extend from left to right;
   Beneath, a living valley seems to stir.
   Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain fir
   Nodding above; behold Black Acheron!
   Once consecrated to the sepulchre.
   Pluto! if this be hell I look upon,
Close shamed Elysium’s gates; my shade shall seek for none!

The Acheron, which they crossed in this route, is now called the Kalamas, a considerable stream, as large as the Avon at Bath but towards the evening they had some cause to think the Acheron had not lost all its original horror; for a dreadful thunderstorm came on, accompanied with deluges of rain, which more than once nearly carried away their luggage and horses.  Byron himself does not notice this incident in Childe Harold, nor even the adventure more terrific which he met with alone in similar circumstances on the night before their arrival at Zitza, when his guides lost their way in the defiles of the mountains—adventures sufficiently disagreeable in the advent, but full of poesy in the remembrance.

The first halt, after leaving Zitza, was at the little village of Mosure, where they were lodged in a miserable cabin, the residence of a poor priest, who treated them with all the kindness his humble means afforded.  From this place they proceeded next morning through a wild and savage country, interspersed with vineyards, to Delvinaki, where it would seem they first met with genuine Greek wine, that is, wine mixed with resin and lime—a more odious draught at the first taste than any drug the apothecary mixes.  Considering how much of allegory entered into the composition of the Greek mythology, it is probable that in representing the infant Bacchus holding a pine, the ancient sculptors intended an impersonation of the circumstance of resin being employed to preserve new wine.

The travellers were now in Albania, the native region of Ali Pasha, whom they expected to find at Libokavo; but on entering the town, they were informed that he was further up the country at Tepellené, or Tepalen, his native place.  In their route from Libokavo to Tepalen they met with no adventure, nor did they visit Argyro-castro, which they saw some nine or ten miles off—a large city, supposed to contain about twenty thousand inhabitants, chiefly Turks.  When they reached Cezarades, a distance of not more than nine miles, which had taken them five hours to travel, they were agreeably accommodated for the night in a neat cottage; and the Albanian landlord, in whose demeanour they could discern none of that cringing, downcast, sinister look which marked the degraded Greek, received them with a hearty welcome.

Next morning they resumed their journey, and halted one night more before they reached Tepellené, in approaching which they met a carriage, not inelegantly constructed after the German fashion, with a man on the box driving four-in-hand, and two Albanian soldiers standing on the footboard behind.  They were floundering on at a trot through mud and mire, boldly regardless of danger; but it seemed to the English eyes of the travellers impossible that such a vehicle should ever be able to reach Libokavo, to which it was bound.  In due time they crossed the river Laos, or Voioutza, which was then full, and appeared both to Byron and his friend as broad as the Thames at Westminster; after crossing it on a stone bridge, they came in sight of Tepellené, when

   The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit,
   And Laos, wide and fierce, came roaring by;
   The shades of wonted night were gathering yet,
   When down the steep banks, winding warily,
   Childe Harold saw, like meteors in the sky,
   The glittering minarets of Tepalen,
   Whose walls o’erlook the stream; and drawing nigh,
   He heard the busy hum of warrior-men
Swelling the breeze that sigh’d along the lengthening glen.

On their arrival, they proceeded at once to the residence of Ali Pasha, an extensive rude pile, where they witnessed a scene, not dissimilar to that which they might, perhaps, have beheld some hundred years ago, in the castle-yard of a great feudal baron.  Soldiers, with their arms piled against the wall, were assembled in different parts of the court, several horses, completely caparisoned, were led about, others were neighing under the hands of the grooms; and for the feast of the night, armed cooks were busy dressing kids and sheep.  The scene is described with the poet’s liveliest pencil.

   Richly caparison’d a ready row
   Of armed horse, and many a warlike store,
   Circled the wide extending court below;
   Above, strange groups adorn’d the corridor,
   And ofttimes through the area’s echoing door,
   Some high-capp’d Tartar spurr’d his steed away.
   The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor
   Here mingled in their many-hued array,
While the deep war-drum’s sound announced the close of day.

         Some recline in groups,
   Scanning the motley scene that varies round.
   There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,
   And some that smoke, and some that play, are found.
   Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground
   Half-whispering, there the Greek is heard to prate.
   Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound;
   The Muezzin’s call doth shake the minaret.
“There is no god but God!—to prayer—lo, God is great!”

The peculiar quietness and ease with which the Mahommedans say their prayers, struck the travellers as one of the most peculiar characteristics which they had yet witnessed of that people.  Some of the graver sort began their devotions in the places where they were sitting, undisturbed and unnoticed by those around them who were otherwise engaged.  The prayers last about ten minutes they are not uttered aloud, but generally in a low voice, sometimes with only a motion of the lips; and, whether performed in the public street or in a room, attract no attention from the bystanders.  Of more than a hundred of the guards in the gallery of the Vizier’s mansion at Tepellené, not more than five or six were seen at prayers.  The Albanians are not reckoned strict Mahommedans; but no Turk, however irreligious himself, ever disturbs the devotion of others.

It was then the fast of Ramazan, and the travellers, during the night, were annoyed with the perpetual noise of the carousal kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the occasional voice of the Muezzin.

   Just at this season, Ramazani’s fast
   Through the long day its penance did maintain:
   But when the lingering twilight hour was past,
   Revel and feast assumed the rule again.
   Now all was bustle, and the menial train
   Prepared and spread the plenteous board within;
   The vacant gallery now seem’d made in vain,
   But from the chambers came the mingling din,
And page and slave, anon, were passing out and in.

CHAPTER XII

Audience appointed with Ali Pasha—Description of the Vizier’s Person—An Audience of the Vizier of the Morea

The progress of no other poet’s mind can be to clearly traced to personal experience as that of Byron’s.  The minute details in the Pilgrimage of Childe Harold are the observations of an actual traveller.  Had they been given in prose, they could not have been less imbued with fiction.  From this fidelity they possess a value equal to the excellence of the poetry, and ensure for themselves an interest as lasting as it is intense.  When the manners and customs of the inhabitants shall have been changed by time and the vicissitudes of society, the scenery and the mountains will bear testimony to the accuracy of Lord Byron’s descriptions.

The day after the travellers’ arrival at Tepellené was fixed by the Vizier for their first audience; and about noon, the time appointed, an officer of the palace with a white wand announced to them that his highness was ready to receive them, and accordingly they proceeded from their own apartment, accompanied by the secretary of the Vizier, and attended by their own dragoman.  The usher of the white rod led the way, and conducted them through a suite of meanly-furnished apartments to the presence chamber.  Ali when they entered was standing, a courtesy of marked distinction from a Turk.  As they advanced towards him, he seated himself, and requested them to sit near him.  The room was spacious and handsomely fitted up, surrounded by that species of continued sofa which the upholsterers call a divan, covered with richly-embroidered velvet; in the middle of the floor was a large marble basin, in which a fountain was playing.

   In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
   Of living water from the centre rose,
   Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
   And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
   ALI reclined; a man of war and woes.
   Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace,
   While Gentleness her milder radiance throws
   Along that aged, venerable face,
The deeds that lurk beneath and stain him with disgrace.

   It is not that yon hoary, lengthening beard,
   Ill suits the passions that belong to youth;
   Love conquers age—so Hafiz hath averr’d:
   So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth—
   But crimes that scorn the tender voice of Ruth,
   Beseeming all men ill, but most the man
   In years, have mark’d him with a tiger’s tooth;
   Blood follows blood, and through their mortal span,
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.

When this was written Ali Pasha was still living; but the prediction which it implies was soon after verified, and he closed his stern and energetic life with a catastrophe worthy of its guilt and bravery.  He voluntarily perished by firing a powder-magazine, when surrounded, beyond all chance of escape, by the troops of the Sultan his master, whose authority he had long contemned.

Mr Hobhouse describes him at this audience as a short fat man, about five feet five inches in height; with a very pleasing face, fair and round; and blue fair eyes, not settled into a Turkish gravity.  His beard was long and hoary, and such a one as any other Turk would have been proud of; nevertheless, he, who was more occupied in attending to his guests than himself, neither gazed at it, smelt it, nor stroked it, according to the custom of his countrymen, when they seek to fill up the pauses in conversation.  He was not dressed with the usual magnificence of dignitaries of his degree, except that his high turban, composed of many small rolls, was of golden muslin, and his yataghan studded with diamonds.

He was civil and urbane in the entertainment of his guests, and requested them to consider themselves as his children.  It was on this occasion he told Lord Byron, that he discovered his noble blood by the smallness of his hands and ears: a remark which has become proverbial, and is acknowledged not to be without truth in the evidence of pedigree.

The ceremonies on such visits are similar all over Turkey, among personages of the same rank; and as Lord Byron has not described in verse the details of what took place with him, it will not be altogether obtrusive here to recapitulate what happened to myself during a visit to Velhi Pasha, the son of Ali: he was then Vizier of the Morea, and residing at Tripolizza.

In the afternoon, about four o’clock, I set out for the seraglio with Dr Teriano, the Vizier’s physician, and the Vizier’s Italian secretary.  The gate of the palace was not unlike the entrance to some of the closes in Edinburgh, and the court within reminded me of Smithfield, in London; but it was not surrounded by such lofty buildings, nor in any degree of comparison so well constructed.  We ascended a ruinous staircase, which led to an open gallery, where three or four hundred of the Vizier’s Albanian guards were lounging.  In an antechamber, which opened from the gallery, a number of officers were smoking, and in the middle, on the floor, two old Turks were seriously engaged at chess.

My name being sent in to the Vizier, a guard of ceremony was called, and after they had arranged themselves in the presence chamber, I was admitted.  The doctor and the secretary having, in the meantime, taken off their shoes, accompanied me in to act as interpreters.

The presence chamber was about forty feet square, showy and handsome: round the walls were placed sofas, which, from being covered with scarlet, reminded me of the woolsacks in the House of Lords.  In the farthest corner of the room, elevated on a crimson velvet cushion, sat the Vizier, wrapped in a superb pelisse: on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger, incrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire as large as the knob on the stopper of a vinegar-cruet, and which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling.  In his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit.  On the sofa beside him lay a pair of richly-ornamented London-made pistols.  At some distance, on the same sofa, but not on a cushion, sat Memet, the Pasha of Napoli Romania, whose son was contracted in marriage to the Vizier’s daughter.  On the floor, at the foot of this pasha, and opposite to the Vizier, a secretary was writing despatches.  These were the only persons in the room who had the honour of being seated; for, according to the etiquette of this viceregal court, those who received the Vizier’s pay were not allowed to sit down in his presence.

On my entrance, his highness motioned to me to sit beside him, and through the medium of the interpreters began with some commonplace courtly insignificancies, as a prelude to more interesting conversation.  In his manners I found him free and affable, with a considerable tincture of humour and drollery.  Among other questions, he inquired if I had a wife: and being answered in the negative, he replied to me himself in Italian, that I was a happy man, for he found his very troublesome: considering their probable number, this was not unlikely.  Pipes and coffee were in the mean-time served.  The pipe presented to the Vizier was at least twelve feet long; the mouth-piece was formed of a single block of amber, about the size of an ordinary cucumber, and fastened to the shaft by a broad hoop of gold, decorated with jewels.  While the pipes and coffee were distributing, a musical clock, which stood in a niche, began to play, and continued doing so until this ceremony was over.  The coffee was literally a drop of dregs in a very small china cup, placed in a golden socket.  His highness was served with his coffee by Pasha Bey, his generalissimo, a giant, with the tall crown of a dun-coloured beaver-hat on his head.  In returning the cup to him, the Vizier elegantly eructed in his face.  After the regale of the pipes and coffee, the attendants withdrew, and his highness began a kind of political discussion, in which, though making use of an interpreter, he managed to convey his questions with delicacy and address.

On my rising to retire, his highness informed me, with more polite condescension than a Christian of a thousandth part of his authority would have done, that during my stay at Tripolizza horses were at my command, and guards who would accompany me to any part of the country I might choose to visit.

Next morning, he sent a complimentary message, importing, that he had ordered dinner to be prepared at the doctor’s for me and two of his officers.  The two officers were lively fellows; one of them in particular seemed to have acquired, by instinct, a large share of the ease and politeness of Christendom.  The dinner surpassed all count and reckoning, dish followed dish, till I began to fancy that the cook either expected I would honour his highness’s entertainment as Cæsar did the supper of Cicero, or supposed that the party were not finite beings.  During the course of this amazing service, the principal singers and musicians of the seraglio arrived, and sung and played several pieces of very sweet Turkish music.  Among others was a song composed by the late unfortunate Sultan Selim, the air of which was pleasingly simple and pathetic.  I had heard of the Sultan’s poetry before, a small collection of which has been printed.  It is said to be interesting and tender, consisting chiefly of little sonnets, written after he was deposed; in which he contrasts the tranquillity of his retirement with the perils and anxieties of his former grandeur.  After the songs, the servants of the officers, who were Albanians, danced a Macedonian reel, in which they exhibited several furious specimens of Highland agility.  The officers then took their leave, and I went to bed, equally gratified by the hospitality of the Vizier and the incidents of the entertainment.

CHAPTER XIII

The Effect of Ali Pasha’s Character on Lord Byron—Sketch of the Career of Ali, and the Perseverance with which he pursued the Objects of his Ambition

Although many traits and lineaments of Lord Byron’s own character may be traced in the portraits of his heroes, I have yet often thought that Ali Pasha was the model from which he drew several of their most remarkable features; and on this account it may be expedient to give a sketch of that bold and stern personage—if I am correct in my conjecture—and the reader can judge for himself when the picture is before him—it would be a great defect, according to the plan of this work, not to do so.

Ali Pasha was born at Tepellené, about the year 1750.  His father was a pasha of two tails, but possessed of little influence.  At his death Ali succeeded to no inheritance but the house in which he was born; and it was his boast, in the plenitude of his power, that he began his fortune with sixty paras, about eighteen pence sterling, and a musket.  At that time the country was much infested with cattle-stealers, and the flocks and herds of the neighbouring villages were often plundered.

Ali collected a few followers from among the retainers of his father, made himself master, first of one village, then of another, amassed money, increased his power, and at last found himself at the head of a considerable body of Albanians, whom he paid by plunder; for he was then only a great robber—the Rob Roy of Albania: in a word, one of those independent freebooters who divide among themselves so much of the riches and revenues of the Ottoman dominions.

In following up this career, he met with many adventures and reverses, but his course was still onwards, and uniformly distinguished by enterprise and cruelty.  His enemies expected no mercy when vanquished in the field; and when accidentally seized in private, they were treated with equal rigour.  It is reported that he even roasted alive on spits some of his most distinguished adversaries.

When he had collected money enough, he bought a pashalic; and being invested with that dignity, he became still more eager to enlarge his possessions.  He continued in constant war with the neighbouring pashas; and cultivating, by adroit agents, the most influential interest at Constantinople, he finally obtained possession of Joannina, and was confirmed pasha of the territory attached to it, by an imperial firman.  He then went to war with the pashas of Arta, of Delvino, and of Ocrida, whom he subdued, together with that of Triccala, and established a predominant influence over the agas of Thessaly.  The pasha of Vallona he poisoned in a bath at Sophia; and strengthened his power by marrying his two sons, Mouctar and Velhi, to the daughters of the successor and brother of the man whom he had murdered.  In The Bride of Abydos, Lord Byron describes the assassination, but applies it to another party.

Reclined and feverish in the bath,
He, when the hunter’s sport was up,
But little deem’d a brother’s wrath
To quench his thirst had such a cup:
The bowl a bribed attendant bore—
He drank one draught, nor needed more.

During this progression of his fortunes, he had been more than once called upon to furnish his quota of troops to the imperial armies, and had served at their head with distinction against the Russians.  He knew his countrymen, however, too well ever to trust himself at Constantinople.  It was reported that he had frequently been offered some of the highest offices in the empire, but he always declined them and sought for power only among the fastnesses of his native region.  Stories of the skill and courage with which he counteracted several machinations to procure his head were current and popular throughout the country, and among the Greeks in general he was certainly regarded as inferior only to the Grand Vizier himself.  But though distrusting and distrusted, he always in the field fought for the Sultan with great bravery, particularly against the famous rebel Paswan Oglou.  On his return from that war in 1798, he was, in consequence, made a pasha of three tails, or vizier, and was more than once offered the ultimate dignity of Grand Vizier, but he still declined all the honours of the metropolis.  The object of his ambition was not temporary power, but to found a kingdom.

He procured, however, pashalics for his two sons, the younger of whom, Velhi, saved sufficient money in his first government to buy the pashalic of the Morea, with the dignity of vizier, for which he paid seventy-five thousand pounds sterling.  His eldest son, Mouctar, was of a more warlike turn, with less ambition than his brother.  At the epoch of which I am speaking, he supplied his father’s place at the head of the Albanians in the armies of the Sultan, in which he greatly distinguished himself in the campaign of 1809 against the Russians.

The difficulties which Ali Pasha had to encounter in establishing his ascendancy, did not arise so much from the opposition he met with from the neighbouring pashas as from the nature of the people, and of the country of which he was determined to make himself master.  Many of the plains and valleys which composed his dominions were occupied by inhabitants who had been always in rebellion, and were never entirely conquered by the Turks, such as the Chimeriotes, the Sulliotes, and the nations living among the mountains adjacent to the coast of the Ionian Sea.  Besides this, the woods and hills of every part of his dominions were in a great degree possessed by formidable bands of robbers, who, recruited and protected by the villages, and commanded by chiefs as brave and as enterprising as himself, laid extensive tracts under contribution, burning and plundering regardless of his jurisdiction.  Against these he proceeded with the most iron severity; they were burned, hanged, beheaded, and impaled, in all parts of the country, until they were either exterminated or expelled.

A short time before the arrival of Lord Byron at Joannina, a large body of insurgents who infested the mountains between that city and Triccala, were defeated and dispersed by Mouctar Pasha, who cut to pieces a hundred of them on the spot.  These robbers had been headed by a Greek priest, who, after the defeat, went to Constantinople and procured a firman of protection, with which he ventured to return to Joannina, where the Vizier invited him to a conference, and made him a prisoner.  In deference to the firman, Ali confined him in prison, but used him well until a messenger could bring from Constantinople a permission from the Porte to authorise him to do what he pleased with the rebel.  It was the arm of this man which Byron beheld suspended from the bough on entering Joannina.

By these vigorous measures, Ali Pasha rendered the greater part of Albania and the contiguous districts safely accessible, which were before overrun by bandits and freebooters; and consequently, by opening the country to merchants, and securing their persons and goods, not only increased his own revenues, but improved the condition of his subjects.  He built bridges over the rivers, raised causeways over the marshes, opened roads, adorned the country and the towns with new buildings, and by many salutary regulations, acted the part of a just, though a merciless, prince.

In private life he was no less distinguished for the same unmitigated cruelty, but he afforded many examples of strong affection.  The wife of his son Mouctar was a great favourite with the old man.  Upon paying her a visit one morning, he found her in tears.  He questioned her several times as to the cause of her grief; she at last reluctantly acknowledged that it arose from the diminution of her husband’s regard.  He inquired if she thought he paid attention to other women; the reply was in the affirmative; and she related that a lady of the name of Phrosynè, the wife of a rich Jew, had beguiled her of her husband’s love; for she had seen at the bath, upon the finger of Phrosynè, a rich ring, which had belonged to Mouctar, and which she had often in vain entreated him to give to her.  Ali immediately ordered the lady to be seized, and to be tied up in a sack, and cast into the lake.  Various versions of this tragical tale are met with in all parts of the country, and the fate of Phrosynè is embodied in a ballad of touching pathos and melody.

That the character of this intrepid and ruthless warrior made a deep impression on the mind of Byron cannot be questioned.  The scenes in which he acted were, as the poet traversed the country, everywhere around him; and his achievements, bloody, dark, and brave, had become themes of song and admiration.

CHAPTER XIV

Leave Joannina for Prevesa—Land at Fanari—Albania—Byron’s Character of the Inhabitants

Having gratified their curiosity with an inspection of every object of interest at Tepellené, the travellers returned Joannina, where they again resided several days, partaking of the hospitality of the principal inhabitants.  On the 3rd of November they bade it adieu, and returned to Salona, on the Golf of Arta; where, in consequence of hearing that the inhabitants of Carnia were up in arms, that numerous bands of robbers had descended from the mountains of Ziccola and Agrapha, and had made their appearance on the other side of the gulf, they resolved to proceed by water to Prevesa, and having presented an order which they had received from Ali Pasha, for the use of his galliot, she was immediately fitted out to convey them.  In the course of the voyage they suffered a great deal of alarm, ran some risk, and were obliged to land on the mainland of Albania, in a bay called Fanari, contiguous to the mountainous district of Sulli.  There they procured horses, and rode to Volondorako, a town belonging to the Vizier, by the primate of which and his highness’s garrison they were received with all imaginable civility.  Having passed the night there, they departed in the morning, which, proving bright and beautiful, afforded them interesting views of the steep romantic environs of Sulli.

   Land of Albania, where Iskander rose,
   Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,
   And he his namesake whose oft-baffled foes
   Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise;
   Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes
   On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!
   The Cross descends, thy minarets arise,
   And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen,
Through many a cypress grove within each city’s ken.

Of the inhabitants of Albania—the Arnaouts or Albanese—Lord Byron says they reminded him strongly of the Highlanders of Scotland, whom they undoubtedly resemble in dress, figure, and manner of living.  “The very mountains seemed Caledonian with a kinder climate.  The kilt, though white, the spare active form, their dialect, Celtic in its sound, and their hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven.  No nation are so detested and dreaded by their neighbours as the Albanese; the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems, and in fact they are a mixture of both, and sometimes neither.  Their habits are predatory: all are armed, and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimeriotes, and Gedges, are treacherous; the others differ somewhat in garb, and essentially in character.  As far as my own experience goes, I can speak favourably.  I was attended by two, an infidel and a Mussulman, to Constantinople and every other part of Turkey which came within my observations, and men more faithful in peril and indefatigable in service are nowhere to be found.  The infidel was named Basilius, the Moslem Dervish Tahiri; the former a man of middle age, and the latter about my own.  Basili was strictly charged by Ali Pasha in person to attend us, and Dervish was one of fifty who accompanied us through the forests of Acarnania, to the banks of the Achelous, and onward to Missolonghi.  There I took him into my own service, and never had occasion to repent it until the moment of my departure.

“When in 1810, after my friend, Mr Hobhouse, left me for England, I was seized with a severe fever in the Morea, these men saved my life by frightening away my physician, whose throat they threatened to cut if I was not cured within a given time.  To this consolatory assurance of posthumous retribution, and a resolute refusal of Dr Romanelli’s prescriptions, I attributed my recovery.  I had left my last remaining English servant at Athens; my dragoman was as ill as myself; and my poor Arnaouts nursed me with an attention which would have done honour to civilization.

“They had a variety of adventures, for the Moslem, Dervish, being a remarkably handsome man, was always squabbling with the husbands of Athens; insomuch that four of the principal Turks paid me a visit of remonstrance at the convent, on the subject of his having taken a woman to the bath—whom he had lawfully bought, however—a thing quite contrary to etiquette.

“Basili also was extremely gallant among his own persuasion, and had the greatest veneration for the Church, mixed with the highest contempt of Churchmen, whom he cuffed upon occasion in a most heterodox manner.  Yet he never passed a church without crossing himself; and I remember the risk he ran on entering St Sophia, in Stamboul, because it had once been a place of his worship.  On remonstrating with him on his inconsistent proceedings, he invariably answered, ‘Our church is holy, our priests are thieves’; and then he crossed himself as usual, and boxed the ears of the first papas who refused to assist in any required operation, as was always found to be necessary where a priest had any influence with the Cogia Bashi of his village.  Indeed, a more abandoned race of miscreants cannot exist than the lower orders of the Greek clergy.

“When preparations were made for my return, my Albanians were summoned to receive their pay.  Basili took his with an awkward show of regret at my intended departure, and marched away to his quarters with his bag of piastres.  I sent for Dervish, but for some time he was not to be found; at last he entered just as Signor Logotheti, father to the ci-devant Anglo-consul of Athens, and some other of my Greek acquaintances, paid me a visit.  Dervish took the money, but on a sudden dashed it on the ground; and clasping his hands, which he raised to his forehead, rushed out of the room weeping bitterly.  From that moment to the hour of my embarkation, he continued his lamentations, and all our efforts to console him only produced this answer, ‘He leaves me.’  Signor Logotheti, who never wept before for anything less than the loss of a paras, melted; the padre of the convent, my attendants, my visitors, and I verily believe that even Sterne’s foolish fat scullion would have left her fish-kettle to sympathise with the unaffected and unexpected sorrow of this barbarian.

“For my part, when I remembered that a short time before my departure from England, a noble and most intimate associate had excused himself from taking leave of me, because he had to attend a relation ‘to a milliner’s,’ I felt no less surprised than humiliated by the present occurrence and the past recollection.

“The Albanians in general (I do not mean the cultivators of the earth in the provinces, who have also that appellation, but the mountaineers) have a fine cast of countenance; and the most beautiful women I have ever beheld, in stature and in features, we saw levelling the road broken down by the torrents between Delvinaki and Libokavo.  Their manner of walking is truly theatrical, but this strut is probably the effect of the capote or cloak depending from one shoulder.  Their long hair reminds you of the Spartans, and their courage in desultory warfare is unquestionable.  Though they have some cavalry among the Gedges, I never saw a good Arnaout horseman, but on foot they are never to be subdued.”

The travellers having left Volondorako proceeded southward until they came near to the seaside, and passing along the shore, under a castle belonging to Ali Pasha, on the lofty summit of a steep rock, they at last reached Nicopolis again, the ruins of which they revisited.

On their arrival at Prevesa, they had no choice left but that of crossing Carnia, and the country being, as already mentioned, overrun with robbers, they provided themselves with a guard of thirty-seven soldiers, and procured another galliot to take them down the Gulf of Arta, to the place whence they were to commence their land journey.

Having embarked, they continued sailing with very little wind until they reached the fortress of Vonitza, where they waited all night for the freshening of the morning breeze, with which they again set sail, and about four o’clock in the afternoon arrived at Utraikee.

At this place there was only a custom house and a barrack for troops close to each other, and surrounded, except towards the water, by a high wall.  In the evening the gates were secured, and preparations made for feeding their Albanian guards; a goat was killed and roasted whole, and four fires were kindled in the yard, around which the soldiers seated themselves in parties.  After eating and drinking, the greater part of them assembled at the largest of the fires, and, while the travellers were themselves with the elders of the party seated on the ground, danced round the blaze to their own songs, with astonishing Highland energy.

   Childe Harold at a little distance stood,
   And view’d, but not displeased, the revelry,
   Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude;
   In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see
   Their barbarous, yet their not indecent glee;
   And as the flames along their faces gleam’d,
   Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free,
   The long wild locks that to their girdles stream’d,
While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream’d.

   “I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear;
   He neither must know who would serve the vizier;
   Since the days of our prophet, the crescent ne’er saw
   A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw.

CHAPTER XV

Leave Utraikee—Dangerous Pass in the Woods—Catoona—Quarrel between the Guard and Primate of the Village—Makala—Gouri—Missolonghi—Parnassus

Having spent the night at Utraikee, Byron and his friend continued their journey southward.  The reports of the state of the country induced them to take ten additional soldiers with them, as their road for the first two hours lay through dangerous passes in the forest.  On approaching these places fifteen or twenty of the party walked briskly on before, and when they had gone through the pass halted until the travellers came up.  In the woods two or three green spots were discovered on the road-side, and on them Turkish tombstones, generally under a clump of trees, and near a well or fountain.

When they had passed the forest they reached an open country, whence they sent back the ten men whom they had brought from Utraikee.  They then passed on to a village called Catoona, where they arrived by noon.  It was their intention to have proceeded farther that day, but their progress was interrupted by an affair between their Albanian guard and the primate of the village.  As they were looking about, while horses were collecting to carry their luggage, one of the soldiers drew his sword at the primate, the Greek head magistrate; guns were cocked, and in an instant, before either Lord Byron or Mr Hobhouse could stop the affray, the primate, throwing off his shoes and cloak, fled so precipitately that he rolled down the hill and dislocated his shoulder.  It was a long time before they could persuade him to return to his house, where they lodged, and when he did return he remarked that he cared comparatively little about his shoulder to the loss of a purse with fifteen sequins, which had dropped out of his pocket during the tumble.  The hint was understood.

Catoona is inhabited by Greeks only, and is a rural, well-built village.  The primate’s house was neatly fitted up with sofas.  Upon a knoll, in the middle of the village, stood a schoolhouse, and from that spot the view was very extensive.  To the west are lofty mountains, ranging from north to south, near the coast; to the east a grand romantic prospect in the distance, and in the foreground a green valley, with a considerable river winding through a long line of country.

They had some difficulty in procuring horses at Catoona, and in consequence were detained until past eleven o’clock the next morning, and only travelled four hours that day to Makala, a well-built stone village, containing about forty houses distinct from each other, and inhabited by Greeks, who were a little above the condition of peasants, being engaged in pasturage and a small wool-trade.

The travellers were now in Carnia, where they found the inhabitants much better lodged than in the Albanian villages.  The house in which they slept at this place resembled those old mansions which are to be met with in the bottoms of the Wiltshire Downs.  Two green courts, one before and the other behind, were attached to it, and the whole was surrounded by a high and thick wall, which shut out the prospect, but was necessary in a country so frequently overrun by strong bands of freebooters.

From Makala they proceeded through the woods, and in the course of their journey passed three new-made graves, which the Albanians pointing at as they rode by, said they were “robbers.”  In the course of the journey they had a distant view of the large town of Vraikore, on the left bank of the Aspro, but they did not approach it, crossing the river by a ferry to the village of Gouria, where they passed the night.

Leaving that place in the morning, they took an easterly direction, and continued to ride across a plain of cornfields, near the banks of the river, in a rich country; sometimes over stone causeways, and between the hedges of gardens and olive-groves, until they were stopped by the sea.  This was that fruitful region formerly called Paracheloïtis, which, according to classic allegory, was drained or torn from the river Achelous, by the perseverance of Hercules and presented by him for a nuptial present to the daughter of Oëneus.

The water at which they had now arrived was rather a salt marsh than the sea, a shallow bay stretching from the mouth of the Gulf of Lepanto into the land for several miles.  Having dismissed their horses, they passed over in boats to Natolico, a town which stood in the water.  Here they fell in with a hospitable Jew, who made himself remembered by saying that he was honoured in their having partaken of his little misery.

Natolico, where they stayed for the night, was a well-built town; the houses of timber, chiefly of two stories, and about six hundred in number.  Having sent on their baggage in boats, they themselves proceeded to the town of Missolonghi, so celebrated since as having suffered greatly during the recent rebellion of the Greeks, but more particularly as the place where Lord Byron died.

Missolonghi is situated on the south side of the salt marsh or shallow, along the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, nearly opposite to Patras.  It is a dull, and I should think an unwholesome place.  The marsh, for miles on each side, has only from a foot to two feet of water on it, but there is a channel for boats marked out by perches.  When I was there the weather was extremely wet, and I had no other opportunity of seeing the character of the adjacent country than during the intervals of the showers.  It was green and pastoral, with a short skirt of cultivation along the bottom of the hills.

Abrupt and rapid as the foregoing sketch of the journey through Albania has been, it is evident from the novelty of its circumstances that it could not be performed without leaving deep impressions on the susceptible mind of the poet.  It is impossible, I think, not to allow that far more of the wildness and romantic gloom of his imagination was derived from the incidents of this tour, than from all the previous experience of his life.  The scenes he visited, the characters with whom he became familiar, and above all, the chartered feelings, passions, and principles of the inhabitants, were greatly calculated to supply his mind with rare and valuable poetical materials.  It is only in this respect that the details of his travels are interesting.—Considered as constituting a portion of the education of his genius, they are highly curious, and serve to show how little, after all, of great invention is requisite to make interesting and magnificent poetry.

From Missolonghi the travellers passed over the Gulf of Corinth to Patras, then a rude, half-ruined, open town with a fortress on the top of a hill; and on the 4th of December, in the afternoon, they proceeded towards Corinth, but halted at Vostizza, the ancient Ægium, where they obtained their first view of Parnassus, on the opposite side of the gulf; rising high above the other peaks of that hilly region, and capped with snow.  It probably was during this first visit to Vostizza that the Address to Parnassus was suggested.

   Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey
   Not in the frensy of a dreamer’s eye,
   Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
   But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
   In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!
   What marvel if I thus essay to sing?
   The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by
   Would gladly woo thine echoes with his string,
Though from thy heights no more one muse will wave her wing.

   Oft have I dream’d of thee! whose glorious name
   Who knows not, knows not man’s divinest lore;
   And now I view thee, ’tis, alas! with shame
   That I in feeblest accents must adore.
   When I recount thy worshippers of yore
   I tremble, and can only bend the knee;
   Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
   But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy
In silent joy, to think at last I look on thee.

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