elieve 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.

LETTER 45.

TO MRS. BYRON.

"Dear Mother,

"Mr. Hobhouse, who will forward or deliver this and is on his return
to England, can inform you of our different movements, but I am very
uncertain as to my own return. He will probably be down in Notts, some
time or other; but Fletcher, whom I send back as an incumbrance
(English servants are sad travellers), will supply his place in the
interim, and describe our travels, which have been tolerably
extensive.

"I remember Mahmout Pacha, the grandson of Ali Pacha, at Yanina, (a
little fellow of ten years of age, with large black eyes, which our
ladies would purchase at any price, and those regular features which
distinguish the Turks,) asked me how I came to travel so young,
without anybody to take care of me. This question was put by the
little man with all the gravity of threescore. I cannot now write
copiously; I have only time to tell you that I have passed many a
fatiguing, but never a tedious moment; and all that I am afraid of is
that I shall contract a gipsylike wandering disposition, which will
make home tiresome to me: this, I am told, is very common with men in
the habit of peregrination, and, indeed, I feel it so. On the third of
May I swam from _Sestos_ to _Abydos_. You know the story of Leander,
but I had no _Hero_ to receive me at landing.

"I have been in all the principal mosques by the virtue of a firman:
this is a favour rarely permitted to infidels, but the ambassador's
departure obtained it for us. I have been up the Bosphorus into the
Black Sea, round the walls of the city, and, indeed, I know more of it
by sight than I do of London. I hope to amuse you some winter's
evening with the details, but at present you must excuse me;--I am not
able to write long letters in June. I return to spend my summer in
Greece.

"F. is a poor