allimachus, who was a grammarian
and ought to have known better, for his contention that Gaudus, i.e.
Gozo, was Calypso's isle. Ogygia (_Odyssey_, i. 50) was

"a sea-girt isle,
Where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle."

It was surely as a poet, not as a grammarian, that Callimachus was at
fault.]

11.

Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes
On thee, thou rugged Nurse of savage men!
Stanza xxxviii. lines 5 and 6.

Albania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus.
Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexander; and the celebrated
Scanderbeg[212] (Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and fourth
lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am correct
in making Scanderbeg the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Pella
in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, and adds Pyrrhus to the list,
in speaking of his exploits.

Of Albania Gibbon remarks that a country "within sight of Italy is less
known than the interior of America." Circumstances, of little
consequence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country
before we visited any other part of the Ottoman dominions; and with the
exception of Major Leake,[213] then officially resident at Joannina, no
other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital into the
interior, as that gentleman very lately assured me. Ali Pacha was at
that time (October, 1809) carrying on war against Ibrahim Pacha, whom he
had driven to Berat, a strong fortress, which he was then besieging: on
our arrival at Joannina we were invited to Tepaleni, his highness's
birthplace, and favourite Serai, only one day's distance from Berat; at
this juncture the Vizier had made it his headquarters. After some stay
in the capital, we accordingly followed; but though furnished with every
accommodation, and escorted by one of the Vizier's secretaries, we were
nine days (on account of the rains) in accomplishing a journey which, on
our return, barely occupied four. On our route we passed two cities,
Argyrocastro and Libochabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina in
size; and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to the scenery in the
vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and
Albania Proper.

On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this
will be done so much better by my fellow-traveller,