The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1

L >> Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero >> The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1

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On the voyage,

"about the third day, Byron relented from his rapt mood, as if he felt
it was out of place, and became playful, and disposed to contribute
his fair proportion to the general endeavour to while away the
tediousness of the dull voyage."

But yet throughout the whole passage,

"if," says Galt, "my remembrance is not treacherous, he only spent one
evening in the cabin with us--the evening before we came to anchor at
Cagliari; for, when the lights were placed, he made himself a man
forbid, took his station on the railing, between the pegs on which the
sheets are belayed and the shrouds, and there, for hours, sat in
silence, enamoured, it may be, of the moon. All these peculiarities,
with his caprices, and something inexplicable in the cast of his
metaphysics, while they served to awaken interest, contributed little
to conciliate esteem. He was often strangely rapt--it may have been
from his genius; and, had its grandeur and darkness been then
divulged, susceptible of explanation; but, at the time, it threw, as
it were, around him the sackcloth of penitence. Sitting amid the
shrouds and rattlings, in the tranquillity of the moonlight, churning
an inarticulate melody, he seemed almost apparitional, suggesting dim
reminiscences of him who shot the albatross"

(Galt's 'Life of Byron', pp. 57-61).]

[Footnote 2: Byron's "new Calypso." Mrs. Spencer Smith (born about 1785)
was the daughter of Baron Herbert, Austrian Ambassador at
Constantinople, wife of Spencer Smith, the British Minister at
Stuttgart, and sister-in-law of Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of Acre. In
1805 she was staying, for her health, at the baths of Valdagno, near
Vicenza, when the Napoleonic wars overspread Northern Italy, and she
took refuge with her sister, the Countess Attems, at Venice. In 1806
General Lauriston took over the government of the city in the name of
Napoleon, and M. de La Garde was appointed Prefect of the Police. A few
days after their arrival, on April 18, Mrs. Smith was arrested, and,
guarded by 'gendarmes', conveyed towards the Italian frontier, to be
confined, as La Garde told a Sicilian nobleman, the Marquis de Salvo, at
Valenciennes. Mrs. Smith's beauty and impending fate deeply impressed
the marquis, who determined to rescue her. The prisoner and her guard
had reached Brescia, and were lodged at the 'Albergo delle due Torre',
The opportunity seemed favourable. Once across the Guarda Lake, and in
the passes of Tyrol, it would be easy to reach Styria. The marquis made
his arrangements--hired two boats, one for the fugitives, the other for
their post-chaise and horses; procured for Mrs. Smith a boy's dress, as
a disguise; made a ladder long enough to reach her window in the inn,
and succeeded in making known his plan to the prisoner. The escape was
effected; but all along the road the danger continued, for their way lay
through a country which was practically French territory. It was not
till they reached Gratz, and Mrs. Smith was under the roof of her
sister, the Countess Strassoldo, that she was safe. The story is told in
detail by the Marquis de Salvo, in his 'Travels in the Year 1806 from
Italy to England' (1807), and by the Duchesse d'Abrantes ('Memoires,'
vol. xv. pp. 1-74).

To Mrs. Spencer Smith are addressed the "Lines to Florence," the
"Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm" (near Zitza, in October, 1809),
and stanzas xxx.-xxxii. of the second canto of 'Childe Harold.' The
Duchesse d'Abrantes ('Memoires', vol. xv. pp. 4, 5) thus describes her:

"Une jeune femme, dont la delicate et elegante tournure, la peau
blanche et diaphane, les cheveux blonds, les mouvemens onduleux, toute
une tournure impossible a decrire autrement qu'en disant qu'elle etait
de toutes les creatures la plus gracieuse, lui donnaient l'aspect
d'une de ces apparitions amenees par un reve heureux... il y avail de
la Sylphide en elle. Sa vue excessivement basse n'etait qu'un charme
de plus."

Moore ('Life,' p. 95) thinks that Byron was less in love with Mrs.
Smith than with his recollection of her. According to Gait ('Life of
Byron,' p. 66),

"he affected a passion for her, but it was only Platonic. She,
however, beguiled him of his valuable yellow diamond ring."]

131.--To his Mother.

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_ [1] 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, [2] 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 army 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, etc.,
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, [3] 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 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. [4] 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
the 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
inquired 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, etc. 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, [5] 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, 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.

To-day I saw the remains of the town of Actium, [6] 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.

His highness is sixty years old, very fat, and not tall, but with a
fine face, light blue eyes, and a white beard; his manner is very
kind, and at the same time he possesses that dignity which I find
universal amongst the Turks. He has the appearance of anything but his
real character, for he is a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most
horrible cruelties, very brave, and so good a general that they call
him the Mahometan Buonaparte. Napoleon has twice offered to make him
King of Epirus, but he prefers the English interest, and abhors the
French, as he himself told me. He is of so much consequence, that he
is much courted by both, the Albanians being the most warlike subjects
of the Sultan, though Ali is only nominally dependent on the Porte; he
has been a mighty warrior, but is as barbarous as he is successful,
roasting rebels, etc., etc. Buonaparte sent him a snuff-box with his
picture. He said the snuff-box was very well, but the picture he could
excuse, as he neither liked it nor the original. His ideas of judging
of a man's birth from ears, hands, etc., were curious enough. To me he
was, indeed, a father, giving me letters, guards, and every possible
accommodation. Our next conversations were of war and travelling,
politics and England. He called my Albanian soldier, who attends me,
and told him to protect me at all hazard; his name is Viseillie, and,
like all the Albanians, he is brave, rigidly honest, and faithful; but
they are cruel, though not treacherous, and have several vices but no
meannesses. They are, perhaps, the most beautiful race, in point of
countenance, in the world; their women are sometimes handsome also,
but they are treated like slaves, _beaten_, and, in short, complete
beasts of burden; they plough, dig, and sow. I found them carrying
wood, and actually repairing the highways. The men are all soldiers,
and war and the chase their sole occupations. The women are the
labourers, which after all is no great hardship in so delightful a
climate. Yesterday, the 11th of November, I bathed in the sea; to-day
is so hot that I am writing in a shady room of the English consul's,
with three doors wide open, no fire, or even _fireplace_, in the
house, except for culinary purposes.

I am going to-morrow, with a guard of fifty men, to Patras in the
Morea, and thence to Athens, where I shall winter. [7] 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. 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, 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, [8] the governor, gave me a house
for nothing, and I had only _one servant_. By the by, I expect Hanson
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 Hanson'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 Hanson, whom you may tell to
write. I will write when I can, and beg you to believe me,

Your affectionate son,

BYRON.

P.S.--I have some very "magnifiques" Albanian dresses, the only
expensive articles in this country. They cost fifty guineas each, and
have so much gold, they would cost in England two hundred. I have been
introduced to Hussein Bey, [9] and Mahmout Pacha, [9] both little
boys, grandchildren of Ali, at Yanina; they are totally unlike our
lads, have painted complexions like rouged dowagers, large black eyes,
and features perfectly regular. They are the prettiest little animals
I ever saw, and are broken into the court ceremonies already. The
Turkish salute is a slight inclination of the head, with the hand on
the heart; intimates always kiss. Mahmout is ten years old, and hopes
to see me again; we are friends without understanding each other, like
many other folks, though from a different cause. He has given me a
letter to his father in the Morea, to whom I have also letters from
Ali Pacha.

[Footnote 1: Ali Pasha (1741-1822) was born in Albania, at Tepeleni, a
town 75 miles north of Janina, of which his father was governor. This
"Mahometan Buonaparte," or "Rob Roy of Albania," made himself the
supreme ruler of Epirus and Albania, acquired a predominance over the
Agas of Thessaly, and pushed his troops to the frontiers of ancient
Attica (see Raumer's 'Historisches Taschenbuch,' pp. 87-175). A
merciless and unscrupulous tyrant, he was also a fine soldier and a born
administrator. Intriguing now with the Porte, now with Buonaparte, now
with the English, using the rival despots of the country against each
other, hand in glove with the brigands while commanding the police for
their suppression, he extended his power by using conflicting interests
to aggrandize himself. The Venetian possessions on the eastern shores of
the Adriatic, which had passed in 1797 to France, by the treaty of Campo
Formio, were wrested from the French by Ali, who defeated General La
Salsette (1798) in the plains of Nicopolis, and, with the exception of
Parga, seized and held the principal towns in the name of the Sultan.
Byron speaks of his "aged venerable face" in 'Childe Harold' (Canto II.
stanza lxii.; see also stanza xlvii.), and of the delicacy of his hand
in 'Don Juan' (Canto IV. stanza xlv.), and finds in his treatment of
"Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro or Scutari (I am not sure which)," the
material for stanzas xiv., xv. of Canto II. of 'The Bride of Abydos'.
Hobhouse ('Journey through Albania', edit. 1854, vol. i. pp. 96, 97)
describes Ali as

"a short man, about five feet five inches in height, and very fat,
though not particularly corpulent. He had a very pleasing face, fair
and round, with blue quick eyes, not at all settled into a Turkish
gravity. His beard was long and white, and such a one as any other
Turk would have been proud of; though he, who was more taken up with
his guests than himself, did not continue looking at it, nor smelling
and stroking it, as is usually the custom of his country-men, to fill
up the pauses of conversation."

Dr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Holland, in his 'Travels in the Ionian Isles,
Albania, Thessaly, and Greece in 1812-13', pp. 125, 126 (1815), gives an
account of his first interview with Ali:

"Were I to attempt a description of Ali, I should speak of his face as
large and full; the forehead remarkably broad and open, and traced by
many deep furrows; the eye penetrating, yet not expressive of
ferocity; the nose handsome and well formed; the mouth and lower part
of the face concealed, except when speaking, by his mustachios and the
long beard which flows over his breast. His complexion is somewhat
lighter than that usual among the Turks, and his general appearance
does not indicate more than his actual age ... The neck is short and
thick, the figure corpulent and unwieldy; his stature I had afterwards
the means of ascertaining to be about five feet nine inches. The
general character and expression of the countenance are unquestionably
fine, and the forehead especially is a striking and majestic feature.
Much of the talent of the man may be inferred from his exterior; the
moral qualities, however, may not equally be determined in this way;
and to the casual observation of the stranger I can conceive from my
own experience, that nothing may appear but what is open, placid, and
alluring. Opportunities were afterwards afforded me of looking beneath
this exterior of expression; it is the fire of a stove burning
fiercely under a smooth and polished surface.... The inquiries he made
respecting our journey to Joannina, gave us the opportunity of
complimenting him on the excellent police of his dominions, and the
attention he has paid to his roads. I mentioned to him generally Lord
Byron's poetical description of Albania, the interest it had excited
in England, and Mr. Hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in
the same country. He seemed pleased with these circumstances, and
stated his recollection of Lord Byron."

Dr. Holland brought back to England a letter to Byron from Ali (see
Letter to Moore, September 8, 1813).

A further account of Ali, together with a portrait, will be found in
Hughes's 'Travels in Sicily, etc.' (pp. 446-449). He again (1813) "asked
with much apparent interest respecting Lord Byron." At the close of the
Napoleonic struggle, the interest of this country was excited by the
resistance of Parga to his arms, especially as, during the late war, the
Pargiotes had received the protection of Great Britain. After the fall
of Parga (1819), Ali's power roused the jealousy of the Sultan, and it
was partly in consequence of his open defiance of the Porte, that
insurrections broke out in Wallachia, and that Ypsilanti proclaimed
himself the liberator of Greece. The Turkish troops, under Kurchid
Pasha, gradually overpowered Ali, and, at the end of 1821, shut him up
in his citadel of Janina. In the following January he surrendered, and
was at first treated with respect. But on February 5, 1822, Ali was
informed that the Sultan demanded his head. His answer was to fire his
pistol at the messenger. In the fray that followed he was killed.
Another and better account (Walsh's 'Narrative of a Journey from
Constantinople to England', p. 62) says that he was stabbed in the back
as he was bowing to the departing messenger, who had solemnly assured
him of the Sultan's pardon and favour. His head was cut off, sent to
Constantinople, and fixed on the grand gate of the Seraglio, with the
sentence of death by its side. Recently fresh interest has been aroused
in Ali by the publication of Mr. Bain's translation of Maurus Jokai's
semi-historical novel 'Janicsarok vegnapjai', under the title of 'The
Lion of Janina' (1897).]

[Footnote 2: Veli Pasha was the son of Ali by a daughter of Coul Pasha,
the governor of Berat, in whose army Ali had served as a young man. He
was married (1798) to a daughter of Ibrahim Pasha, who had succeeded
Coul Pasha in the pashalik of Berat. The war with Ibrahim, to which
Byron alludes, ended in his defeat, and the transference of his pashalik
to Ali. Veli, at this time Vizier of the Morea, resided at Tripolizza,
when he was visited by Galt, who describes him as sitting

"on a crimson velvet cushion, wrapped in a superb pelisse; on his head
was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger encrusted with jewels, and on
the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire 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."
"In his manners," says Galt, "I found him free and urbane, with a
considerable tincture of humour and drollery"

('Life of Byron', p. 83). Hobhouse ('Journey through Albania, etc.',
vol. i. p. 193) says,

"The Vizier, for he is a Pasha of three tails, is a lively young man;
and besides the Albanian, Greek, and Turkish languages, speaks
Italian--an accomplishment not possessed, I should think, by any other
man of his high rank in Turkey. It is reported that he, as well as his
father, is preparing, in case of the overthrow of the Ottoman power,
to establish an independent sovereignty."

Veli, in his father's struggle with the Sultan, betrayed Prevesa to the
Turks. He was executed in 1822, and is buried at the Silivria Gate of
Constantinople.

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