"_Now at length we're off for Turkey, Lord knows when we shall come back! Breezes foul and tempests murky May unship us in a crack. But since life at most a jest is, As philosophers allow, Still to laugh by far the best is, Then laugh on--as I do now. Laugh at all things, Great and small things, Sick or well, at sea or shore; While we're quaffing, Let's have laughing-- Who the devil asks for more?-- Some good wine! and who would lack it, Ev'n on board the Lisbon packet?_" Those verses, quite as much as "'Tis done, and shivering in the gale"--and much more than anything in "Childe Harold,"--indicate the frame of mind in which Byron wished his native land good-night. He was travelling with all the paraphernalia of the grand tourist--with more servants than he could afford, and with the hearty, matter-of-fact John Cam Hobhouse for his companion to keep him out of mischief. Whatever he fled from, adventure was what he was looking for--not only the adventures which belong to the exploration of barbarous countries, but also those which are to be encountered in the boudoirs of garrison towns. He landed at Lisbon and went to Cintra. He rode across Spain to Seville and Cadiz. He proceeded to Gibraltar, to Malta, to Albania, to Athens, and thence to Smyrna and the Dardanelles. He returned to Athens, and spent some time in exploring the interior of Greece. That, in outline, was the itinerary; and there were two adventures of which the letters to Hodgson show him to have been particularly proud. He swam the Hellespont, in imitation of Leander--a feat of which he boasts, over and over again, in every letter to every correspondent--and he indulged in "a passion for a married woman at Malta." Nor was that his only passion. If it was the only passion which he felt--which is doubtful--it certainly was not the only passion which he inspired. "Lord Byron," says Hobhouse, in his matter-of-fact way, "is, of course, very popular with all the ladies, as he is very handsome, amusing, and generous; but his attentions to all and sundry generally end, as on this occasion, in _rixæ femininæ_." We shall come to that story in a moment. It is preceded by a story of which the hint is in the lines beginning: "_Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, But formed for all the witching arts of love_:" a story of which the memory is in "Don Juan": "_'Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes--that is I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been._" It happened at Seville, where the travellers, as Hobhouse writes, "made the acquaintance of Admiral Cordova, with whose daughter Byron contrived to fall in love at very short notice."