Deep in whose darkly-boding ear
   The death-shot peal’d of murder near.

“This superstition of a second-hearing,” says Lord Byron, “fell once under my own observation.  On my third journey to Cape Colonna, as we passed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratea and Colonna, I observed Dervish Tahiri (one of his Albanian servants) riding rather out of the path, and leaning his head upon his hand as if in pain.  I rode up and inquired.  ‘We are in peril!’ he answered.  ’What peril? we are not now in Albania, nor in the passes to Ephesus, Missolonghi, or Lepanto; there are plenty of us well armed, and the Choriotes have not courage to be thieves.’—­’True, Affendi; but, nevertheless, the shot is ringing in my ears.’—­’The shot! not a tophaike has been fired this morning.’—­’I hear it, notwithstanding—­ bom—­bom—­as plainly as I hear your voice.’—­’Bah.’—­’As you please, Affendi; if it is written, so will it be.’

“I left this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to Basili, his Christian compatriot, whose ears, though not at all prophetic, by no means relished the intelligence.  We all arrived at Colonna, remained some hours, and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, in more languages than spoiled the building of Babel, upon the mistaken seer; Romaic, Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and English were all exercised, in various conceits, upon the unfortunate Mussulman.  While we were contemplating the beautiful prospect, Dervish was occupied about the columns.  I thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked him if he had become a palaocastro man.  ‘No,’ said he, ’but these pillars will be useful in making a stand’ and added some remarks, which at least evinced his own belief in his troublesome faculty of fore-hearing.

“On our return to Athens we heard from Leone (a prisoner set on shore some days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes, with the cause of its not taking place.  I was at some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in ‘villainous company,’ and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood.  Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat and his native mountains.

“In all Attica, if we except Athens itself, and Marathon,” Byron remarks, “there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna.  To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher the supposed scene of some of Plato’s conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the prospect over ’Isles that crown the AEgean deep.’  But, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest in being the actual spot of Falconer’s Shipwreck.  Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell.