of four
English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of
the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in
some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance
being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the
other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the
melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, in April, we
had made an attempt; but having ridden all the way from the Troad the
same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it
necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the
castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, entering a
considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic,
fort. [Le] Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for
his mistress; and Olivier mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan;
but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances,
and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the _Salsette's_
crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only
thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the
truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain
its practicability. [See letter to Drury, dated May 3; to his mother,
May 24, 1810, etc. (_Letters_, 1898, i. 262, 275). Compare the
well-known lines in _Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cv.--

"A better swimmer you could scarce see ever,
He could perhaps have passed the Hellespont,
As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided)
Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did."

Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza clxxxiv. line 3, and the
_Bride of Abydos_, Canto II. stanza i.: _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 461,
note 2, _et post_, p. 178.]

[8] {14} [Hobhouse, who records the first attempt to cross the
Hellespont, on April 16, and the successful achievement of the feat, May
3, 1810, adds the following note: "In my journal, in my friend's
handwriting: 'The whole distance E. and myself swam was more than four
miles--the current very strong and cold--some large fish near us when
half across--we were not fatigued, but a little chilled--did it with
little difficulty.--May, 6, 1810. Byron.'"--_Travels in Albania_, ii.
195.]

[9] {15} ["At Orchomenus, where stood the Temple of the Graces, I was
tempted to exclaim, 'Whither have the Graces fled?' Little did I