contrary, it is most unlikely. The Hunts sailed from England in November, 1821, and reached Leghorn nearly nine months after first setting out on a voyage which, in its delays and dangers, Byron compared to the "periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian, and with much the same speed";[252] Peacock to that of Ulysses.[253] Of Shelley's suggestion to make the trip by sea, Hunt wrote: "if he had recommended a balloon, I should have been inclined to try it."[254] Hogg, with his characteristic humour, remarked that a journey by land would have taken equally long, since Hunt would have stopped to gather all the daisies by the wayside from Paris to Pisa. Both men looked forward to many years together[255] and Shelley, in his letter of welcome, wrote that wind and waves parted them no more,[256] an assertion which now sounds like a knell of doom. From Leghorn Shelley conveyed the party to Pisa and installed them in the lower floor of Byron's dwelling, the Lanfranchi Palace.[257] To Shelley fell the difficult task of keeping Lord Byron in heart for the new undertaking and of reviving Hunt's drooping spirits. Hunt's funds were all gone and in their place was a debt of sixty crowns. The next few days were full of grave anxiety and foreboding for the future, broken only by a delightful Sunday spent in seeing the Cathedral and the Tower. Of this day Hunt wrote: "Good God! what a day was that, compared with all that have followed it! I had my friend with me, arm-in-arm, after a separation of years: he was looking better than I had ever seen him--we talked of a thousand things--we anticipated a thousand pleasures."[258] Then came the fatal Monday with its shipwreck of many hopes--in its tragic sequel too well known to need repetition here. Hunt's last services to his friend were his assistance rendered at the cremation and his contribution of the now famous Latin epitaph "_cor cordium_."[259] With Shelley perished Hunt's chief hope in life; in the opinion of his son, he was never the same man again. In 1832, at his period of darkest depression, he wrote: "If you ask me how it is that I bear all this, I answer, that I love nature and books, and think well of the capabilities of human kind. I have known Shelley, I have known my mother."[260] In 1844 he claimed as his proudest title, the "Friend of Shelley."[261]