MALTA—ATTACKED BY BILIOUS FEVER—SAILS TO PALERMO—SEGESTE—LEAVES FOR GIRGENTI—IMMIGRANT ALBANIANS—SELINUNTO—TRAVELLING WITH SICILIANS—GIRGENTI—RESTORES THE TEMPLE OF THE GIANTS—LEAVES FOR SYRACUSE—OCCUPATIONS IN SYRACUSE—SALE OF THE ÆGINA MARBLES—LEAVES FOR ZANTE.

"We had nothing but west winds, very unfavourable for us. Meltern, as this wind is called, follows the rim of the coast of Asia Minor, being north in the Archipelago, west along Karamania, and turning south again down the coast of Syria. We were seldom out of sight of land—first the mountains of Asia, then Rhodes, Crete, the Morea, &c. Finally we reached Malta on the 18th of July, being the twenty-seventh day since we left Scanderoon, and the end of a month of complete idleness. I spent most of the time in the captain's cabin, showing him all the attention I could, and profiting in return very much by his society and his library.

To get to Malta was a refreshment to our spirits. Numbers of visitors came at once under the stern to salute Captain Beaufort, although until we had pratique they could not come aboard. The plague is at present in Smyrna, and quarantine for ships from thence usually lasts thirty or forty days; but as we could prove that we had had no communication with any infected town, we were let off in two days. Unfortunately, from the moment we arrived I began to feel unwell. All the time I was on the coast of Asia I had been taking violent exercise and perspiring profusely, while since we left I had been wholly confined; and the consequence of the change was a violent bilious attack with fever. After stopping in bed three days I thought I would take a trip to Sant' Antonio with Gammon, the senior officer; but I got back so thoroughly done up that I had to lie up again, and was ill for three weeks in Thorn's Hotel.[41] My chief remedies, prescribed by Doctors Stewart of the Frederiksteen and Allen of the Malta Hospital, were calomel in large quantities and bleeding.

Every day one or other of the officers of the Frederiksteen—Gammon, Seymour, Lane, or Dodd—came to sit with me.

When I was able to get about again, I found that Captain Beaufort had been moved to the house of Commissioner Larcom, where every possible care was taken of him. They were a most agreeable and hospitable family—the only one, indeed, in Malta. The officers—General Oakes, Colonel Phillips, &c.—were like all garrison officers. Mr. Chabot, the banker, honoured my drafts, and when I was going expressed his sorrow that I was off so soon, as he had hoped to have seen me at his house.

As soon as ever I was well enough I felt eager to get away from a society so odious to me as that of Malta, and having been introduced from two separate sources to Mr. Harvey, commander of H.M. brig Haughty, I got from him an excellent passage to Palermo. It took us from the 20th August to the 28th. Mr. Harvey himself was ill, and I saw little of him, but what I did delighted me. Like all sailors, he was very lovable, and so long as he remained in Palermo I went to him every day.

My first day I strolled over the town and delivered my letters to Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Fagan. The latter is an antiquarian and a great digger. He told me, I think, that he had dug up over two hundred statues in his time. I called on him several times afterwards, pleased with his conversation and hoping to learn something of Sicily from him, and found him exceedingly polite. A return of the fever I had in Malta confined me again for a few days, after which I managed to keep it at bay with plenty of port wine and bark. My chief friends in Palermo were General and Mrs. Campbell, Sir Robert Laurie, captain of a 74 lying here, Lord William Bentinck, generalissimo of the British army of occupation in Sicily, and Fagan.

After a fortnight in Palermo I started on a trip to Segeste. I could not but be very much struck by the difference between the richness of Sicily, and the desolation of Greece under Turkish rule. Mahomet II. desired that on his tomb should be written that had he lived he proposed in the ensuing summer to conquer 'the beautiful Italy and the island of Rhodes.' Sicily must have followed, and I pictured in my mind the landscape as it would then have looked. A few ruined mosques would have supplied the place of the splendid churches and monasteries, and a wretched khan and a few low huts the rich towns of Sala and Partinico.

The temple of Segeste is the largest I have seen, but it looks as if it had never been finished. The style of workmanship is good and exact, but as far inferior to Athenian execution as its rough stone is to Pentilican marble. The turn of the capital is very inferior in delicacy to Athenian examples, and there is no handsome finish to the ceiling of the peristyle, which was probably of plaster like Ægina. The circular sinking cut in the plinth to receive the column, leaving a space all round to give a play, it is said, in case of earthquake, is certainly curious if that was the purpose of it. Nothing whatever remains of the cella.

In the evening we returned to Alcamo and next day breakfasted with Colonel Burke, who is in command of a regiment of 1,400 fine men, all Piedmontese and Italians, not Sicilians. One finds Englishmen in command everywhere. Returned to Palermo.

My fame had spread in my absence, and on my return I found my table covered with cards and invitations—the most conspicuous being from General Macfarlane and Lord Montgomery.

The palaces of the Sicilian nobles are exasperatingly pretentious and tasteless; that of Palagonia is an unforgetable nightmare.

Though a paradise compared with Greece, I find Sicily seething with discontent; and were it not for Lord W. Bentinck, to whom the people look up as the only honest man amongst the authorities, there would be an insurrection.

Ten days later I set out on horseback for Girgenti. On the second day I turned aside from Villa FratÉ to visit one of the Greek villages so much talked of and so misrepresented. In Palermo I was told that the villagers are some of the ancient Greek settlers, who remain so unchanged that they still wear sandals and are almost pagans. In reality they are Albanians, who emigrated in the sixteenth century when the oppression of the Turks was specially severe in their country, and came in bands to various points of Sicily. Mezzojuso is one of their settlements, and has about 2,000 inhabitants. The situation, about two miles off the road from Villa FratÉ to Alcara, is on the side of a mountain and very beautiful. I met some goodhumoured peasants who were ready to tell me all they knew. They talk Albanian amongst themselves, and they readily understood the few words of it which I and my servant could speak. The explanation of the report of their being almost pagans is that they retain the Greek ritual, although they have changed the altar to the Catholic form and acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope. Over the altar is a Greek inscription, which I read, to the surprise of those who attended me. The priests preserve the Greek costume, the bead cap, hair, &c. St. Nicolas, the Greek saint par excellence, is a conspicuous figure in the Church. What a pity I had not with me a little of the earth I took from the shrine of the saint at Myra in Asia Minor! It would have been an acceptable present to the priest. I saw none of the women, but I was told they wear a peculiar costume; and at their communion, instead of the host, as in Roman Catholic churches, a piece of cloth is held up.

Started for the temples of Selinunto, accompanied by Don Ignazio, the son of my host, Don Gaetano. We took the road towards the sea, and passing through Siciliana and turning inland came in the evening to Cattolica. Here we added to our party a most entertaining companion, Don Raffaelle Politi, a painter, not very excellent in his art, though one of the best in Sicily, but full of talents and of humour. He was staying at the time in the house of a certain marquis, for whom he had been painting two ceilings. We went to see him there, and found him with the marchese, sitting over a greasy table surrounded by a company of nasty fellows, such as in England one might see in a shopkeeper's parlour. No sort of civility or hospitality was shown us. On the other hand, a friend and equal of Don Raffaelle's received us very kindly. He and a company of tradesmen who had come over to a fair which was being held in Cattolica, and had of course brought their guitars with them, entertained us before supper in the locanda.

Next day we passed by the ancient city of Heraclia, of which, however, there are very trifling remains, to Sciacca, where in the market-place we saw dead meat—meat of animals that had died of disease owing to the great drought this year, which has killed a great many cattle—being sold to the poor at a cheap rate. Travelling with Sicilians I fell into their customs, and instead of looking out for an hotel I went with them into a cafÉ where we ate and drank. The cafetiere, to show his liberality, in pouring out lets the cup overflow until the saucer also is full, after which he brings spirits and cigars—all customs new to me. Arrived in a storm at Montefeice, wet through. My friends slept on a mattress, and I, who was accustomed to it, slept on the floor.

Nothing can be more solemn than the magnificent remains of the three temples of Selinus, but I had not many hours to study them. It is clear that earthquake was the cause of their destruction, and I guess from the difference in preservation between the parts which fell and were covered and protected, and the condition of those which remain standing, that it may have occurred about the eighth or ninth century. We went over twice from Montefeice, each time returning in the evening; and when we got home, how differently we spent our evenings from the ordinary way Englishmen do! Had they been my companions we should have cursed the fare and lodging, and should have laid ourselves down grumbling to pass a tedious and uncomfortable night. Instead of that, with these Sicilians, as soon as the demands of hunger were satisfied, at the sound of a guitar in the streets, we sallied out and joined the serenaders, stopped under the windows of some fair one we did not know, and Don Raffaelle, who is a perfect master of the guitar and ravished the bystanders, played and sang with much taste a number of exceedingly pretty melodies. If this was not enough for the evening, we sat and told stories.

At Cattolica we arrived so late that every inch of the locanda was occupied. We did not care to disturb our friend of the previous occasion, Don Giuseppe, and the marchese's hospitality had been so grudgingly offered that we were too proud to accept it, and so we sought consolation by going about the streets with a guitar till we were tired of it, and then taking horse again; but before going far we were so weary that we got off under a tree, sat down, and waited for dawn to light us back to Girgenti.

After my return to Girgenti, I remained there till the 14th of November, applying myself with close attention and infinite pleasure to attempting to reconstruct the Temple of Jupiter Olympius. The examination of the stones and the continual exercise of ingenuity kept me very busy, and at the end the successful restoration of the temple gave me a pleasure which was only to be surpassed by that of originally conceiving the design.

My days went by in great peace and content. I lived with the family of Don Gaetano Sterlini, and when I got accustomed to them I learnt to like them. The bawling of the servants, the open doors, the dirt and disorder of a Sicilian household came after a time to be matters of course to me and passed unnoticed.

But there came an English fine gentleman, by the name of Cussins, to spend two days here, who was not so philosophical and made himself odious by protesting. When anyone came into or went out of the room, the doors, which never else turned on their hinges, must be shut; the windows, that perhaps lacked two or three panes, must be closed; the shutters bolted; he could not eat the food nor drink the wine. A creature so refined is as unpleasant an object to a barbarian as the latter is to him, and we prayed for his departure.

My fine friend was supercilious to me, but polite in a lofty fashion, and took a patronising interest in what I was doing. Would I give him some notes and a sketch? At first I said I would, but his manner disgusted me, so that I finally sent him only the notes. He wanted the sketch to flourish at Palermo.

In the last few days of my stay my fame got about. The CaffÉ dei Nobili, the bishop and all, heard with astonishment that I had unravelled the puzzle, and that all the morsels composing the giants were still existing and could be put together again. A dignitary of the Church, (Don?) Candion Panettieri, sent me a message to say that if I would mark the stones and give directions for the setting up of one of the giants, he would undertake the expense of doing it. I was tempted by this offer and the immediate notoriety it would give me, and agreed and completed my sketch as far as it could be carried and took it to him. It was copied immediately, and with my name appended as the author, sent to Palermo. Then I went over the fragments with Raffaelle Politi and marked the stones corresponding with the numbers in the design.

Don Gaetano could not contain his indignation at my suffering the results of so much labour to be launched into the world as it were semi-anonymously, instead of in a book duly written and published by myself, the author. From the moment I handed over my drawing to Politi to copy there was no peace between us. I could not help being gratified at the interest he took in my success, and my feeling for him was sharpened by the sentiment with which his fair daughter had inspired me, which was so strong that it made me feel the necessity of going away, and yet made me weep like a noodle when I did. But I had found my reward in the pleasure of solving the puzzle, and though I liked the notoriety, it was not worth giving oneself much trouble about.

I left Girgenti with Don Ignazio Sala, son-in-law of Sterlini, for Alicata, and the consul himself saw me as far as the River Agrigas. On our left were many sulphur works, which are so injurious to vegetation that there is a law in force that they shall not work from the time the corn begins to get up till after the harvest. From Palma the road lies along the seashore, and there at every mile and a half are watch-towers, or, failing these, straw huts for the coastguard to give warning of Barbary corsairs. Until lately this coast was infested by them. Their descents were small, and they carried off only a few men or cattle; but there was once a desperate action near Alicata, in which the inhabitants turned out, headed by the priest, and captured the whole party of twenty-five who had landed. The prisoners were sent by Palermo to Algiers to be exchanged.

Alicata to Serra Nuova. Serra Nuova to Cartalagerone. We had to cross a river on the way, the banks of which were high and the river swollen by the rain, and one mule with baggage and man rolled right into it.

The night got very dark, and I really thought we should have to stop on the bank all night or break our necks, but by help of repeated invocations indifferently to Maria Sanctissima and Santo Diavolone we got across safely at last.

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.

Meanwhile the sale came off at Zante. The French offer of 160,000 francs proved to be altogether too conditional to be accepted, and the sculptures were knocked down to Prince Louis for 10,000 sequins.

It was suggested afterwards that Gropius had been bribed by Wagner to keep the English parties in the dark, but it was never proved. What is clear is that if Gropius had kept his agent, McGill, properly informed as to the place of sale, Coombe would have been able to bid and the Ægina statues would be in the British Museum now.

Cockerell at once set out from Syracuse for Zante. But he found that when he joined there was really nothing to be done. He at first tried to upset the contract, but on reflection he found himself obliged in honour and in law to abide by the action of their agent. A new agreement was drawn up and signed, confirming the former and engaging to petition the British Government for leave to export the sculptures from Malta.

At home in England the deepest disappointment was felt by those who had interested themselves in the acquisition, and a protest was forwarded by Mr. S. P. Cockerell through Mr. Hamilton to the Government, petitioning that no permission to remove the marbles from Malta should be granted, and demanding a new sale on the ground of improper procedure in the first.

In the end, however, it was not found possible to contest the validity of the sale, and they were finally delivered to the Prince of Bavaria in 1814.

[41] Now the HÔtel de Provence.