From Cartalagerone by Mineo to Lentini, and so to Syracuse. Although compared with the ancient town it is tiny and confined entirely to the island of Ortygia, the modern Syracuse has considerable fortifications. We had to pass through four gates and two dykes before we got inside. At one gate the guard wanted to take our arms, till I remonstrated on the insult to the British nation, and they let me pass. But, then, if they did not mean to enforce it, how ridiculous ever to make such a regulation!
As soon as I was settled I despatched a letter my friend Raffaelle Politi had given me to his father, who came at once, offered me every civility, and remained my fast friend throughout my stay."
Cockerell spent three months—December, January, and February—in Syracuse. For one thing his health had been severely shaken by the grave illness he had had in Malta, and he needed rest. It seems to have made a turning-point in his travels. Hitherto his letters home had been full of joyous anticipations of getting back to England, and with restless energy he had endeavoured to cram the utmost into his time before doing that, and settling into harness as an architect. Seeing so many countries and going through so many vicissitudes had, however, weakened the tie and he could now make himself at home anywhere. For another thing, a main object of his travels—perhaps the main object—was a visit to Italy, as for practical purposes Italian architecture was the best worth studying. But the war with France continuing, Italy remained closed indefinitely to a British subject. So for several years there are no more references to coming home. A last reason for stopping where he was, was that the weather was detestable. It was the terrible winter of the retreat from Moscow. "For forty days," he says, "it never failed to rain, snow, or hail."
His time was chiefly spent in preparing the drawings for the plates of the great contemplated book on Ægina and Phigaleia. Besides this, he seems to have drawn in the museum, and to have read a good deal; he learnt the art of cutting cameos, and even executed some; and finally, fired by the performances of his friend Politi, he spent two hours a day in learning to play the guitar. He probably never carried this accomplishment very far and abandoned it on leaving Sicily, for I never recollect even hearing it alluded to. The time passed very quietly. He had some friends among the Sicilians, besides the Politis—Don Pietro Satallia, the Conte Bucchieri, and one English acquaintance, Lieutenant Winter, adjutant of the town and fort, who had a nice English wife and large family, with whom he spent occasional evenings. For the most part, however, he spent his evenings studying in his lodgings, and "on the whole," he says, "I can say of Syracuse what I wish I could say of all the places I ever stopped in: I do not repent of the time I spent there."
During the latter part of his stay, when the weather grew less severe, he was a good deal occupied in examining the walls of ancient Syracuse, and the fortress of Labdalum.
A letter received at about this time from Linckh records the death of the little Skye terrier Fop which my father had brought with him from England.
When he left Athens to go with Messrs. North, Douglas, and Foster to Crete, en route for Egypt, he left the dog behind in charge of a certain Nicolo, who seems to have gone with Bronstedt and Linckh not long after on the expedition they undertook to Zea in December 1811.... "Dans la lettre égarée je vous ai écrit le sort malheureux de votre pauvre Fope, qui a fini ses jours misérablement et en grande famine à Zea. Bronstedt et moi nous lui avons encore prolongé son triste destin pour quelques jours, car nous l'avons trouvé mourant dans un ravin entre la ville de Zea et le port. Vraiment ce Nicolo est un être infâme et malicieux. Vous savez que nous lui avons confisqué la bague du Platon qu'il a portée aussitôt que vous autres êtes partis d'Athènes pour Egypte. [He had stolen it, as he did later various articles from Hughes and Parker, q.v.] Comme nous avons quitté l'isle de Zea, il faisait une banque de pharaon pour piller les Zeotes."
He had kept in communication with his friends in Greece, and especially with Gropius, to whom he had written repeatedly on the subject of the sale of the Ægina Marbles, but it was not till March that he could have heard of the disastrous issue.
What had happened was this. It will be remembered that while the statues themselves had been conveyed for security to Malta, the sale of them had been advertised to take place in Zante on November 1, 1812.
When the day arrived only two bidders presented themselves in the sale room, one bearing an offer from the French Government, and Herr Wagner another from Prince Louis of Bavaria. The British Museum had sent out a Mr. Coombe with ample powers to buy for England, but he never turned up. He had reached Malta in good time, but having understood from Mr. McGill, who was pro tem. agent for Gropius, that the sale would take place where the marbles were, took it for granted that he knew all about it and there stayed, waiting for the auctioneer to come.