The route which Lord Byron now took through Albania, as well as those subsequent journeys through other parts of Turkey, which he performed in company with his friend Mr. Hobhouse, may be traced, by such as are desirous of details on the subject, in the account which the latter gentleman has given of his travels; an account which, interesting from its own excellence in every merit that should adorn such a work, becomes still more so from the feeling that Lord Byron is, as it were, present through its pages, and that we there follow his first youthful footsteps into the land with whose name he has intertwined his own for ever.  As I am enabled, however, by the letters of the noble poet to his mother, as well as by others, still more curious, which are now, for the first time, published, to give his own rapid and lively sketches of his wanderings, I shall content myself, after this general reference to the volume of Mr. Hobhouse, with such occasional extracts from its pages as may throw light upon the letters of his friend.

LETTER 40.

TO MRS. BYRON.

“Prevesa, November 12. 1809.

“My dear Mother,

“I have now been some time in Turkey:  this place is on the coast, but I have traversed the interior of the province of Albania on a visit to the Pacha.  I left Malta in the Spider, a brig of war, on the 21st of September, and arrived in eight days at Prevesa.  I thence have been about 150 miles, as far as Tepaleen, his Highness’s country palace, where I stayed three days.  The name of the Pacha is Ali, and he is considered a man of the first abilities:  he governs the whole of Albania (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus, and part of Macedonia.  His son, Vely Pacha, to whom he has given me letters, governs the Morea, and has great influence in Egypt; in short, he is one of the most powerful men in the Ottoman empire.  When I reached Yanina, the capital, after a journey of three days over the mountains, through a country of the most picturesque beauty, I found that Ali Pacha was with his array in Illyricum, besieging Ibrahim Pacha in the castle of Berat.  He had heard that an Englishman of rank was in his dominions, and had left orders in Yanina with the commandant to provide a house, and supply me with every kind of necessary gratis; and, though I have been allowed to make presents to the slaves, &c., I have not been permitted to pay for a single article of household consumption.

“I rode out on the vizier’s horses, and saw the palaces of himself and grandsons:  they are splendid, but too much ornamented with silk and gold.  I then went over the mountains through Zitza, a village with a Greek monastery (where I slept on my return), in the most beautiful situation (always excepting Cintra, in Portugal) I ever beheld.  In nine days I reached Tepaleen.  Our journey was much prolonged by the torrents that had fallen from the mountains and intersected the roads.