TALBOT1430

Ancona
7^th May 1826

My Dear Mother,

As soon as I am released from quarantine, I shall go to Florence; when I by you will write to me. By good luck Giovanni ¹ has found a letter here, which says you were all well on the 15^th April the last account of you being so long ago as the 14^th March – During the five weeks I stayed in the Ionian Islands I never received a syllable from you or any other creature.

I left Corfu the evening of the 3^d and arrived here the evening of the 5^th after an admirable run of two days and two hours, the sea quite calm, we have glimpses of the snowy mountains of Cattaro in Dalmatia; of the island Meleda, where they say S^t Paul was shipwrecked, of the promontory of Gargano and of the Abruzzi mountains which are a grand snowy chain, –

Tell M^r F. ² that my little sextant does wonders – I observed the latitude at sea, along with the Italian Captain, and our results happening to be exactly the same, he was so delighted that he immediately set me down for an officer of the Navy. –

The last three days I spent in Corfu I rode about the island in all directions. It is a lovely wilderness – quite unlike any other place I have seen, and one thinks as one rambles thro’ it, what a Paradise it might be.

From the steep promontory gazed
The stranger raptured and amazed
And, What a scene were here! he cried,
For princely pomp or churchman’s pride!
On this bold brow, a lordly tower;
In that soft vale, a lady’s bower;
On yonder meadow, far away,
The turrets of a Cloister grey.
Blithe were it then to wander here,
But now!……………… Walter Scott ³

Zante possesses one incomparable view, but I do not much like it in other respects.

Your aff^te Son
H.T.

Lady E. Feilding
31 Sackville Street
Londra