Joy Unconfined by Ian Strathcarron

Author:Ian Strathcarron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shelly, Byron, Keats, poems, poetry, poem, verse, travel, romantic, tour, don juan, metapysical, andrew marvel, syphilis
ISBN: 9781908493323
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2012-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

FROM PREVEZA TO MESSOLONGHI

7 -22 NOVEMBER 1809 | 26 FEBRUARY - 4 MARCH 2009

When Byron and Hobhouse left Ioannina on 3 November 1809Ali Pasha had undertaken to give his guests safe passage as faras Patras, where they would be under the protection of his proxy, hisson Veli Pasha. Byron’s battalion was still recruiting new members: the first escort, which was to take them as far as Preveza, was formed of fifty Albanian soldiers, in addition to which Byron led his core entourage of Hobhouse, Fletcher, Georgiou, Vassily, a new Albanian dervish called Tahiri - who like Vassily was to stay with Byron throughout the Grand Tour - and now two unnamed Athenians and a Greek priest. The plan was to retrace their steps with the escort as far as Preveza, then sail from Preveza to Patras on one of Ali Pasha’s galliots. Unfortunately, as we shall see, they encountered foul weather in an ill found boat with ill trained crew and were nearly shipwrecked. They eventually arrived in Patras overland.

We will pick them up in Preveza as the journey south from Ioannina to Preveza was much the same as the journey north, and they stayed in the same places in St. Demetre, Arta and Salaóra as they had on the journey upcountry. The journey south sped by; riding at escort speed, and with little new to see, they arrived in Preveza in only four days, and stayed there only for one night.

They left Preveza on 8 November in one of Ali Pasha’s four-gun galliots. A galliot was, as it sounds, a small galley, usually single masted, built to be rowed as well as sailed. They were the standard lightly armed merchant ships of the time in the eastern Mediterranean. The skipper was Albanian, a Captain Dulcigniote. The ship’s crew were twenty Turks and five Greeks and, although not specified, there would typically be about a dozen Christian slaves - captured enemy men, in that area probably Souliotes - for the oars. Hobhouse described the captain as ‘a mild mannered man’, seldom an encouraging sign with a mixed crew, and not all of them volunteers.

The problems started as soon as the galliot tried to leave Preveza harbour. They nearly ran aground in a gust as they weighed anchor, whereupon the captain asked them if they would prefer to wait until later before setting off. Byron would have none of it: the winds are fair, let’s away. Instead of insisting on his captaincy, Dulcigniote concurred and at 1 p.m. off they set.

All was well as they sailed past the site of the battle of Actium, the Roman name for Preveza. Apart from Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s sea battle with Octavian here, more recently, in 1538, at the battle of Preveza the Ottoman navy under High Admiral Barbarossa (like Drake the famous corsair had become a poacher turned gamekeeper) had defeated the allied fleet of Emperor Charles V under Admiral Doria. Doria, with a far superior fleet, had seen his stragglers harried

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