I continue to be entertained by Byron's adventures and his descriptions. Thus, the horses supplied for his return through the mountain passes in winter: "The horses were punctual. One could not put its near foreleg to the ground, and the other two resembled the mount of Death in the Apocalypse."
I assume that Byron was referring to
Durer's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, an image that surely was familiar to readers of the era. Definitely not transportation up to the requirements; his comments after his first day out "I rode nearly sixty miles today and have just got into bed with a cup of soup. The first cock is crowing."
His hardihood is amazing, finding himself lost in the mountains in the mist:
"We were lost. It was a tiresome predicament in a country where personal safety ceases with the curfew. But it dispelled my pains like magic. I wondered for a minute if the guide had brought me to this pass for some purpose of his own. His moans contradicted the idea; he might be a robber, I thought unjustly, but not an actor. He would not even help me unload the luggage. Finally I shook him out of his despair and he consented to hobble the horses. Then he sank on to his tuft again, refused the food I offered him, and tried to refuse the blanket till I tied it round his shoulders. It was very cold; we were again in a thick damp cloud. I spread my own bedding, dined off some egg, sausage, cheese, and whisky, read a little Boswell, and fell fast asleep among the aromatic herbs with my money-bags between my feet and my big hunting knife unclasped in my fist."