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.
FOOTNOTE:
[41] Now the Hôtel de Provence.