[140] [Byron and Hobhouse sailed for Malta in the brig-of-war _Spider_ on Tuesday, September 19, 1809 (Byron, in a letter to his mother, November 12, says September 21), and anchored off Patras on the night of Sunday, the 24th. On Tuesday, the 26th, they were under way at 12 noon, and on the evening of that day they saw the sun set over Mesalonghi. The next morning, September 27, they were in the channel between Ithaca and the mainland, with Ithaca, then in the hands of the French, to the left. "We were close to it," says Hobhouse, "and saw a few shrubs on a brown heathy land, two little towns in the hills scattered among trees." The travellers made "but little progress this day," and, apparently, having redoubled Cape St. Andreas, the southern extremity of Ithaca, they sailed (September 28) through the channel between Ithaca and Cephalonia, passed the hill of Ætos, on which stood the so-called "Castle of Ulysses," whence Penelope may have "overlooked the wave," and caught sight of "the Lover's refuge" in the distance. Towards the close of the same day they doubled Cape Ducato ("Leucadia's cape," the scene of Sappho's leap), and, sailing under "the ancient mount," the site of the Temple of Apollo, anchored off Prevesa at seven in the evening. Poetry and prose are not always in accord. If, as Byron says, it was "an autumn's eve" when they hailed "Leucadia's cape afar," if the evening star shone over the rock when they approached it, they must have sailed fast to reach Prevesa, some thirty miles to the north, by seven o'clock. But _de minimis_, the Muse is as disregardful as the Law. And, perhaps, after all, it was Hobhouse who misread his log-book. (_Travels in Albania_, i. 4, 5; Murray's _Handbook for Greece_, pp. 40, 46.)] [141] {125} [The meaning of this passage is not quite so obvious as it seems. He has in his mind the words, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save," and, applying this to Sappho, asks, "Why did she who conferred immortality on herself by her verse prove herself mortal?" Without Fame, and without verse the cause and keeper of Fame, there is no heaven, no immortality, for the sons of men. But what security is there for the eternity of verse and Fame? "_Quis custodiet custodes_?"] [142] {126} [For Byron's "star" similes, see Canto III. stanza xxxviii. line 9.] [ew] ----_and looked askance on Mars_.--[MS. erased.] [143] [Compare the line in Tennyson's song, _Break, break, break,_ "And the stately ships go on."] [ex] _And roused him more from thought than he was wont_ _While Pleasure almost seemed to smooth his pallid front_.--[MS. D.] _While Pleasure almost smiled along_----.--[MS. erased.]