At the same date Stanhope writes, “The people in the streets are looking forward to his lordship’s arrival as they would to the coming of the Messiah.”  Byron was unable to start in the ship sent for him; but in spite of medical warnings, a few days later, i.e.  December 28th, he embarked in a small fast-sailing sloop called a mistico, while the servants and baggage were stowed in another and larger vessel under the charge of Count Gamba.  From Gamba’s graphic account of the voyage we may take the following:—­“We sailed together till after ten at night; the wind favourable, a clear sky, the air fresh, but not sharp.  Our sailors sang alternately patriotic songs, monotonous indeed, but to persons in our situation extremely touching, and we took part in them.  We were all, but Lord Byron particularly, in excellent spirits.  The mistico sailed the fastest.  When the waves divided us, and our voices could no longer reach each other, we made signals by firing pistols and carbines.  To-morrow we meet at Mesolonghi—­to morrow.  Thus, full of confidence and spirits, we sailed along.  At twelve we were out of sight of each other.”

Byron’s vessel, separated from her consort, came into the close proximity of a Turkish frigate, and had to take refuge among the Scrofes’ rocks.  Emerging thence, he attained a small seaport of Acarnania, called Dragomestri, whence sallying forth on the 2nd of January under the convoy of some Greek gunboats, he was nearly wrecked.  On the 4th Byron made, when violently heated, an imprudent plunge in the sea, and was never afterwards free from a pain in his bones.  On the 5th he arrived at Mesolonghi, and was received with salvoes of musketry and music.  Gamba was waiting him.  His vessel, the “Bombarda,” had been taken by the Ottoman frigate, but the captain of the latter, recognizing the Count as having formerly saved his life in the Black Sea, made interest in his behalf with Yussuf Pasha at Patras, and obtained his discharge.  In recompense, the poet subsequently sent to the Pasha some Turkish prisoners, with a letter requesting him to endeavour to mitigate the inhumanities of the war.  Byron brought to the Greeks at Mesolonghi the 4000_l_. of his personal loan (applied, in the first place, to defraying the expenses of the fleet), with the spell of his name and presence.  He was shortly afterwards appointed to the command of the intended expedition against Lepanto, and, with this view, again took into his pay five hundred Suliotes.  An approaching general assembly to organize the forces of the west, had brought together a motley crew, destitute, discontented, and more likely to wage war upon each other than on their enemies.  Byron’s closest associates during the ensuing months, were the engineer Parry, an energetic artilleryman, “extremely active, and of strong practical talents,” who had travelled in America, and Colonel Stanhope (afterwards Lord Harrington) equally with himself devoted to the emancipation of Greece, but at variance about the means