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.