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,
