“Oh how I wish that an embargo
    Had kept in port the good ship Argo! 
    Who, still unlaunch’d from Grecian docks,
    Had never passed the Azure rocks;
    But now I fear her trip will be a
    Damn’d business for my Miss Medea, &c. &c.,

as it very nearly was to me;—­for, had not this sublime passage been in my head, I should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carcass in honour of the ancients.

“I have now sat on the Cyaneans, swam from Sestos to Abydos (as I trumpeted in my last), and, after passing through the Morea again, shall set sail for Santo Maura, and toss myself from the Leucadian promontory;—­surviving which operation, I shall probably join you in England.  H., who will deliver this, is bound straight for these parts; and, as he is bursting with his travels, I shall not anticipate his narratives, but merely beg you not to believe one word he says, but reserve your ear for me, if you have any desire to be acquainted with the truth.

“I am bound for Athens once more, and thence to the Morea; but my stay depends so much on my caprice, that I can say nothing of its probable duration.  I have been out a year already, and may stay another; but I am quicksilver, and say nothing positively.  We are all very much occupied doing nothing, at present.  We have seen every thing but the mosques, which we are to view with a firman on Tuesday next.  But of these and other sundries let H. relate with this proviso, that I am to be referred to for authenticity; and I beg leave to contradict all those things whereon he lays particular stress.  But, if he soars at any time into wit, I give you leave to applaud, because that is necessarily stolen from his fellow-pilgrim.  Tell Davies that H. has made excellent use of his best jokes in many of his Majesty’s ships of war; but add, also, that I always took care to restore them to the right owner; in consequence of which he (Davies) is no less famous by water than by land, and reigns unrivalled in the cabin as in the ‘Cocoa Tree.’

“And Hodgson has been publishing more poesy—­I wish he would send me his ‘Sir Edgar,’ and ‘Bland’s Anthology,’ to Malta, where they will be forwarded.  In my last, which I hope you received, I gave an outline of the ground we have covered.  If you have not been overtaken by this despatch, H.’s tongue is at your service.  Remember me to Dwyer, who owes me eleven guineas.  Tell him to put them in my banker’s hands at Gibraltar or Constantinople.  I believe he paid them once, but that goes for nothing, as it was an annuity.

“I wish you would write.  I have heard from Hodgson frequently.  Malta is my post-office.  I mean to be with you by next Montem.  You remember the last,—­I hope for such another; but after having swam across the ‘broad Hellespont,’ I disdain Datchett.[138] Good afternoon!

I am yours, very sincerely,

“BYRON.”

About ten days after the date of this letter, we find another addressed to Mrs. Byron, which—­with much that is merely a repetition of what he had detailed in former communications—­contains also a good deal worthy of being extracted.