pied himself during the voyage
mainly in reading--among other books, Scott's _Life of Swift_, Grimm's
_Correspondence_, La Rochefoucauld, and Las Casas--and watching the
classic or historic shores which they skirted, especially noting Elba,
Soracte, the Straits of Messina, and Etna. In passing Stromboli he said to
Trelawny, "You will see this scene in a fifth canto of _Childe Harold_."
On his companions suggesting that he should write some verses on the spot,
he tried to do so, but threw them away, with the remark, "I cannot write
poetry at will, as you smoke tobacco." Trelawny confesses that he was
never on shipboard with a better companion, and that a severer test of
good fellowship it is impossible to apply. Together they shot at gulls or
empty bottles, and swam every morning in the sea. Early in August they
reached their destination. Coming in sight of the Morea, the poet said to
Trelawny, "I feel as if the eleven long years of bitterness I have passed
through, since I was here, were taken from my shoulders, and I was
scudding through the Greek Archipelago with old Bathurst in his frigate."
Byron remained at or about Cephalonia till the close of the year. Not long
after his arrival he made an excursion to Ithaca, and, visiting the
monastery at Vathi, was received by the abbot with great ceremony, which,
in a fit of irritation, brought on by a tiresome ride on a mule, he
returned with unusual discourtesy; but next morning, on his giving a
donation to their alms-box, he was dismissed with the blessing of the
monks. "If this isle were mine," he declared on his way back, "I would
break my staff and bury my book." A little later, Brown and Trelawny being
sent off with letters to the provisional government, the former returned
with some Greek emissaries to London, to negotiate a loan; the latter
attached himself to Odysseus, the chief of the republican party at Athens,
and never again saw Byron alive. The poet, after spending a month on board
the "Hercules," dismissed the vessel, and hired a house for Gamba and
himself at Metaxata, a healthy village about four miles from the capital
of the island. Meanwhile, Blaquiere, neglecting his appointment at Zante,
had gone to Corfu, and thence to England. Colonel Napier being absent from
Cephalonia, Byron had some pleasant social intercourse with his deputy,
but, unable to get from him any authoritative information, was left
without advice, to be besieged by letters and messages from