“Tell our friends to keep up their spirits, and we may yet do well.  I disembarked the boy and another Greek, who were in most terrible alarm—­the boy, at least, from the Morea—­on shore near Anatoliko, I believe, which put them in safety; and, as for me and mine, we must stick by our goods.

“I hope that Gamba’s detention will only be temporary.  As for the effects and monies, if we have them,—­well; if otherwise, patience.  I wish you a happy new year, and all our friends the same.

“Yours,” &c.

During these adventures of Lord Byron, Count Gamba, having been brought to by the Turkish frigate, had been carried, with his valuable charge, into Patras, where the Commander of the Turkish fleet was stationed.  Here, after an interview with the Pacha, by whom he was treated, during his detention, most courteously, he had the good fortune to procure the release of his vessel and freight; and, on the 4th of January, reached Missolonghi.  To his surprise, however, he found that Lord Byron had not yet arrived; for,—­as if everything connected with this short voyage were doomed to deepen whatever ill bodings there were already in his mind,—­on his Lordship’s departure from Dragomestri, a violent gale of wind had come on; his vessel was twice driven on the rocks in the passage of the Scrofes, and, from the force of the wind, and the captain’s ignorance of those shoals, the danger was by all on board considered to be most serious.  “On the second time of striking,” says Count Gamba, “the sailors, losing all hope of saving the vessel, began to think of their own safety.  But Lord Byron persuaded them to remain; and by his firmness, and no small share of nautical skill, got them out of danger, and thus saved the vessel and several lives, with 25,000 dollars, the greater part in specie.”

The wind still blowing right against their course to Missolonghi, they again anchored between two of the numerous islets by which this part of the coast is lined; and here Lord Byron, as well for refreshment as ablution, found himself tempted into an indulgence which, it is not improbable, may have had some share in producing the fatal illness that followed.  Having put off in a boat to a small rock at some distance, he sent back a messenger for the nankeen trowsers which he usually wore in bathing; and, though the sea was rough and the night cold, it being then the 3d of January, swam back to the vessel.  “I am fully persuaded,” says his valet, in relating this imprudent freak, “that it injured my Lord’s health.  He certainly was not taken ill at the time, but in the course of two or three days his Lordship complained of a pain in all his bones, which continued, more or less, to the time of his death.”

Setting sail again next morning with the hope of reaching Missolonghi before sunset, they were still baffled by adverse winds, and, arriving late at night in the port, did not land till the morning of the 5th.