Together they shot at gulls or
empty bottles, and swam every morning in the sea. Early in August they
reached their destination. Coming in sight of the Morea, the poet said to
Trelawny, "I feel as if the eleven long years of bitterness I have passed
through, since I was here, were taken from my shoulders, and I was
scudding through the Greek Archipelago with old Bathurst in his frigate."
Byron remained at or about Cephalonia till the close of the year. Not long
after his arrival he made an excursion to Ithaca, and, visiting the
monastery at Vathi, was received by the abbot with great ceremony, which,
in a fit of irritation, brought on by a tiresome ride on a mule, he
returned with unusual discourtesy; but next morning, on his giving a
donation to their alms-box, he was dismissed with the blessing of the
monks. "If this isle were mine," he declared on his way back, "I would
break my staff and bury my book." A little later, Brown and Trelawny being
sent off with letters to the provisional government, the former returned
with some Greek emissaries to London, to negotiate a loan; the latter
attached himself to Odysseus, the chief of the republican party at Athens,
and never again saw Byron alive.
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