Some of Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicles’ in the archive of the Hellenic Society, London (photo: the Bent Archive).
[Unless otherwise referenced, original Mabel Bent material courtesy of The Hellenic Society/School of Advanced Study, University of London (reproduced under Creative Commons: Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0)]
The Hellenic Society’s holdings of the notebooks and Chronicles of celebrity explorers Theodore and Mabel Bent have now been digitised and are available here via the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
The Bents had almost twenty years of travel adventures together (1877-1897), being interested in many fields of ethnology, archaeology, and geography in the Levant, Africa, and Arabia.
What follows is a quick glance at the subfusc covers of Mabel’s diaries (or ‘Chronicles’ as she called them) 1883-1897. Not all of them, however, i.e. her (alas lost?) diary of the pair’s trip to Ethiopia in 1893, and Mabel’s solo journey to Egypt in 1898, as a widow, depressively labelled by her: ‘A lonely useless journey’. (Click for the full itineraries and details of all the couple’s travels together.)
Mabel Bent’s travel notebooks:
Plate 1: Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicle’ covers: 1883/4 to 1897 (upper: 1, 2; lower: 3, 4) (The Hellenic Society).
1) The Cyclades: beginning “Mabel Bent, her Chronicle in The Kyklades 1883-4. Dedicated to my Sisters and my Aunts”, the first of Mabel’s Chronicles (and the only one not to have a pasted front label) is written in a dark-red leather, lined and columned, accounts book (£.s.d.); it has marbled endpapers and edges and measures 175 x 110 mm. Mabel completes 94 of its 130 leaves. note 1
2) The Dodecanese: beginning “Mabel V.A. Bent her Chronicle in the Sporades, etc. 1885”, the second of Mabel’s Chronicles is written in a blue marbled, board covered notebook (185 x 120 mm) with marbled endpapers and edges. Mabel’s initials are inked on the front. There are 170 lined pages and Mabel fills 115 of them. The pasted cover label reads: ‘Egypt Greece 1885 –’.
3) The Eastern Aegean: inexplicably beginning “My Fourth Chronicle 1886”, the third of Mabel’s travel diaries is written in a dark-red leather notebook (180 x 115 mm) with marbled endpapers and edges. near the edges of the covers there are two parallel and scored lines. There are 192 lined pages and Mabel uses all but 10 of them. The pasted cover label reads: ‘Istambul [sic] Greek Islands 1886 –’. note 2
4) The Northern Aegean: beginning simply “1887”, Mabel’s fourth Chronicle is written in a dark-red leather notebook (180 x 115 mm) with marbled endpapers and edges. near the edges of the covers there are two parallel and scored lines, the corners including a stylized clover design. There are 85 lined pages and Mabel has covered 75 of them. The pasted cover label reads: ‘Greece 1887’. note 3 Plate 2: Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicle’ covers: 1888 and 1889 (upper: 5, 6; lower: 7, 8) (The Hellenic Society).
5) The Turkish coast: beginning “My fifth Chronicle” (the correct numbering is restored), Mabel’s 1888 diary is written in a dark-red leather book (180 x 115 mm), with gold lines on the spine and covers; the endpapers and edges are marbled. Near the edges of the covers there are two parallel and scored lines. There are 192 pages of lined paper, of which Mabel has used 182. This expedition involved a happy cruise along Turkey’s south-western shores – “…a paradise for archaeologists and tortoises…” The pasted cover label reads: ‘Turkey Russia 1888’.
6, 7, 8) Bahrain and Iran (in 3 vols): beginning “Persia 1889”, this adventure, including a marathon ride, south-north, through present-day Iran, and well deserving of a documentary on its own, necessitated three notebooks. Mabel adds in the third volume (8) that it is her 6th Chronicle. Notebook 6 is plain and bound in dark-red leather (180 x 115 mm). The endpapers and edges are marbled; near the edges of the covers there are two parallel and scored lines. There are 148 lined pages, of which Mabel has used all, including the endpapers. Notebook 7, perhaps from the same retailer, is also a plain, dark-red leather volume (180 x 115 mm); the endpapers and edges are marbled; there are 148 pages, of which Mabel has used all, including the endpapers. Notebook 8 is from a different source; it is a plain, dark-red, leathered-covered book (170 x 110 mm); there are 184 pages, plus endpapers, of which Mabel has used 50; the edges are speckled with blue wavy lines. The three pasted cover labels read: ‘1889 no 1 –’; ‘Persia 1889 (2)’; ‘1889 No. 3’. note 4 Plate 3: Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicle’ covers: 1890 and 1891 (upper: 9, 10; lower: 11, 12) (The Hellenic Society).
9) Turkey: beginning “My Seventh Chronicle ‘Rugged Cilicia’ 1890”, this Chronicle is written in a dark-red leather book (185 x 120 mm). The endpapers and edges are marbled. The paper is lined; there are 90 pages and Mabel has filled 89 of them. Near the edges of the covers there are two parallel and scored lines. The pasted cover label reads: ‘Cilicia 1890’. note 5
10, 11) South Africa: beginning “1891. My Eigth [sic] Chronicle To Zimbabye in Mashonaland”, Mabel uses two notebooks for the couple’s notorious 1891 travels to and from South Africa, occupying the energetic duo for most of 1891. Notebook 1 (10) is a plain, dark-red leather volume (180 x 120 mm). The endpapers and edges are marbled. The paper is lined; there are 180 pages, plus endpapers, of which Mabel has used all. The volume ends in early August 1891 as the party approaches the year-old Fort Salisbury (modern Harare, where Theodore’s watercolours of the trip are now seemingly inaccessible in the Archives). The second notebook narrates the homeward journey, via Umtali (Mutare) and the Pungwe River to Beira in Mozambique. The second volume (11) does not quite match its predecessor; it is plain and in dark-red leather (175 x 115 mm). The endpapers and edges are marbled. The paper is lined; near the edges of the covers of both books are two parallel and scored lines. There are 164 pages, of which Mabel has used all but six. The pasted cover labels read, respectively: ‘Central Africa No 1’ and ‘1891 No 2 Africa Central’. note 6
[Mabel’s notebooks, for what would have been her ‘9th Chronicle’, relating their subsequent expedition in 1893 to Ethiopia, are, alas, lost]
12) Wadi Hadramaut (Yemen): beginning, defiantly, ‘Hadramout’, with no Chronicle number (it would be No. 10), Mabel uses two notebooks to narrate their famous 1893-4 travels to the Wadi Hadramaut in Yemen, Southern Arabia (the start of a trio of ill-fated expeditions). The first volume includes the party’s preparations in Aden (December 1893). It is a plain, dark-red leather volume (180 x 115 mm); near the edges of the covers of both books are two parallel and scored lines. The endpapers and edges are marbled. The paper is lined; there are 146 pages, plus endpapers, of which Mabel has used all. The pasted cover label reads: ‘Hadramaut 1893 to 94 No 1 A’.
Plate 4: Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicle’ covers: 1894 to 1897 (upper: 13, 14; lower: 15, 16) (The Hellenic Society).
13) Wadi Hadramaut (Yemen): beginning “Continuation of My Chronicle in the only very moderately Blest Arabia 1894”, Mabel’s second notebook here concludes their curtailed trek into the Wadi Hadramaut, and sees the pair reach London again in April 1894. It is a plain, dark-red leather volume (180 x 115 mm). The endpapers and edges are marbled. Near the edges of the covers there are two parallel and scored lines. The paper is lined; there are 146 pages, of which Mabel has used just 34. The cover label reads: ‘Hadramaut – no 2. A 1894 -’. (It appears that the year has been altered from ‘1884’.)
14) Muscat and Dhofar: beginning just “Saturday 15th December, 1894. The Residency, Muscat”, Mabel again gives no Chronicle number (it would be No. 11) to this notebook covering the couple’s aborted and dispiriting expedition into the Wadi Hadramaut, this time from the east. It is a dark-red leather volume with gilt bordering (180 x 115 mm). The endpapers and edges are marbled. The paper is lined; there are 172 pages, plus endpapers, of which Mabel has used just 68, indicating a frustrated expedition. The pasted cover label reads (confusingly): ‘1894-5 Hadramaut’.
15) Red Sea (west coast): beginning “1895 The Chronicle of my Thirteenth Journey”, although in fact, and ominously, it should be referenced her as her twelfth, this penultimate adventure has the couple travelling from Suez, south to Massowa (Mitsiwa) and back, by dhow. On the way home, via Athens, they attend the first modern Olympic Games. Mabel keeps her diary in a lined, dark-red leather book (175 x 115 mm), near the edges of the covers there are two parallel and scored lines. The endpapers are marbled; there are 152 pages in the notebook but Mabel only completes 62. The cover label reads: ‘1895-6 Suez Kourbat Athens’. note 7
16) Sokotra, Aden: Beginning (with the ‘c’ altered to a ‘k’) “The Island of Sokotra 1896-7”, Mabel’s unnumbered diary (it is, in fact, the unlucky 13th Chronicle) details the couple’s final journey together, and is to witness them at the end both desperately ill with malaria (Theodore dies in London a few days after their return in May 1897, ending nearly twenty years of hitherto inseparable travel). The notebook is a dark-red leather volume (180 x 115 mm), with gold edging to the spine and covers. The endpapers and edges are marbled. The paper is lined; there are 178 pages, plus endpapers, of which Mabel has used 146. The pasted cover label reads: ‘Isle [of] Socotra 1896-7’. note 8
Notes
Four of Mabel’s opening flourishes to her ‘Chronicles’. The 1895 notebook was actually the account her 12th journey, making the ‘Sokotra’ journal her unlucky 13th – Theodore died of malarial complications a few days after returning to London, 5th May 1897. (The Hellenic Society).
Note 1: The Bents had first toured the Eastern Mediterranean, and some of the Greek and Turkish islands, including the Cyclades, in early 1883, but it seems Mabel did not keep a travel diary at that time, more’s the pity, although her later diaries make reference to it (i.e. see The Travel Chronicles of Mabel Bent, Vol.1, 2006, Oxford, p.52). Mabel’s first diary notebook was, in fact, one of Theodore’s, he has written in the back ‘J.T. Bent. Acct. Book. Oct. 13th 1871’: he would have been nineteen and about to go up Wadham College, Oxford, to read history. Perhaps, just before setting out for their second trip to Greece in November 1883, one of the couple hit upon the idea that Mabel should keep a record of the trip, and a simple, dark-red leather notebook that has been lying around for twelve summers is the first thing that comes to hand. But from this inconsequential idea flows a nearly twenty-year stream of travel diaries, unparalleled in their scope, and addictive in their appeal. Return from Note 1
Note 2: Still inside this volume is a letter from Mabel’s friend, Mrs H.R. Graham, who writes: “Why oh why don’t you publish it? It simply bristles with epigrams and I am certain would be a great success! You ought to blend the Chronicles into one and I am sure everyone would buy it.’ (This is now possible of course.). The H.R. Grahams were old friends, Graham seconding Theodore’s application for election as a Royal Geographical Society Fellow on 16 June 1890. Return from Note 2
Note 3: Included in the little volume remains a melancholy letter from the unhappy wife of a minor functionary in Skopje. She implores Mabel to visit: ‘Monday morning. My dear Madam, You would really do me a great favour if you would spend an hour or two with me today. Ours is rather a rough kind of home, but I can offer you a cup of tea. I think if you only knew how hard it is for an educated woman to be in exile at such a place as Uskub [Skopje], without either congenial society or habitual surroundings, you would come out of charity. May I fetch you about 4? With compliments to your husband, Faithfully yours, Florence K. Berger’”. Presumably by the end of tea Mabel would have learned that Mrs Berger was herself, in fact, a published author, having written about an earlier stay in Bucharest – A Winter in the City of Pleasure(London, 1877). Return from Note 3
Note 4: The first in the trilogy of notebooks elucidating the Bents’ journey from London, via Karachi and Bushire, to Bahrain; then their extraordinary overland ride, zigzagging north-south, through Persia (Iran). The second volume is a record from just north of Persepolis as far as modern Tabriz. Inside the cover Mabel has written her name and address (as she does for most of her notebooks): “Mabel V.A. Bent, 13 Great Cumberland Place, W., 1889”, and has the following note: “The state of the edge of this book is caused by a mule’s rolling in the saddlebags, which broke the butter tin so that the melted butter got into everything.” It seems that Mabel only set out with these two notebooks; aware of space problems, she contracted her usually neat handwriting, making the transcription of these volumes difficult in places. The third volume tells of the journey home – from Tabriz to London. This third book was bought locally (in Tabriz) and is of poorer quality than the other two that came from London. The binding is poor and some sheets are loose. Tucked into this book is a miscellaneous bill from the ‘Hôtel de l’Europe’, Vladikavkas (capital of North Ossetia-Alania, Russia). Return from Note 4
The ‘Mandragora’ leaf (M. officinarum) Mabel pins to a page within her 1890 notebook (her 5th Chronicle) during the couple’s travels along the Turkish littoral. (The Hellenic Society)
Note 5: This was another of the Bents’ enjoyable, carefree even, expeditions (1890, in which they famously discover the ancient site of Olbaalong the way). On several occasions in this Chronicle (but in no other within the 15-year series) Mabel has leaves occasional spreads of blank pages “for meditations”, suggesting rare hints of intimacy, girlishness too – “Theodore says I can keep the pages I have left out for meditations!” As an example, a ‘mandragora’ leaf remains pinned to one of her pages: “This is said to be a leaf of mandragora or mandrake. I have been given some roots and seen a good many, which are certainly most extraordinary, but I cannot help thinking they are helped into their human form with a knife and then earthed over. Some say after being cut they are planted again to grow a little but as they grow very deep I do not think that likely. I shall believe in them better when I have seen one dug up.” Importantly, this notebook also has tucked within it an extremely rare paper print from one of Mabel’s photographs in the field; no others have appeared to date. Return from Note 5
An extremely rare paper print of a photograph taken in 1890 by Mabel Bent at the site of an inaccessible inscription near Olba in Cilicia; it was tucked into her notebook of that year: “A ladder was needed to read this [inscription], so one had to be built and very cleverly it was managed… a couple of trees were cut and notches cut in the back of them and then some large sticks just laced on with one loop which hitched into the notches. As one side was about a foot and a half longer than the other it had a queer and dangerous twist.” (‘Travel Chronicles of Mabel Bent’, Vol. 1. Oxford, 2006, p.281) (photo: The Hellenic Society).
Note 6: This notebook records the couple’s homeward journey from Great Zimbabwe, via Fort Salisbury (modern Harare) and the Pungwe River to Beira in Mozambique. The volume differs from its predecessor; it was perhaps obtained from a stationer’s en route. The top of page two is stained and Mabel has written next to it ‘Hydrochloric Acid’ – presumably part of the photographic paraphernalia from her mobile ‘darkroom’; she was again expedition photographer. Return from Note 6
Note 7: By ‘Kourbat’ Mabel is referring to the Wadi Kurbab district on the southern Sudanese coast, including the so-called Halaib Triangle. Appointed by the British authorities in Cairo to keep an eye on the expedition was the young Capt. N.M. Smyth (1868-1941) (later Major General Sir Nevill Maskelyne Smyth, VC, KCB). Also with the party, paying his way, was Hugh Alfred Cholmley (1876-1944) of Place Newton, Rillington, Yorkshire; Hugh was a shooter on the trip – photographs and wildlife, especially birds: “While here [near Sawakin al-Qadim] we got a few Sand-Grouse, two young Shrikes, and an Egyptian Goatsucker. One day while near the sea I saw two black Ducks, which I am sure were Velvet Scoters – the large yellow beak and black plumage showed distinctly, but they were too far off for a shot.” (Cholmley, A.J. (1897). ‘Notes on the Birds of the Western Coast of the Red Sea’, Ibis 39(2): 196-209). The last four pages of this diary narrate the couple’s short stay in Athens on the way home, including a visit to the first Olympic Games of the modern era (April 6–15, 1896). The notebook has its cost price written in pencil in the front: one shilling (c. £2.50). Return from Note 7
The Bents’ hospital bill from Aden, 1897. Folded into her notebook of that year, it is signed by their Goanese physician, Dr Dias (The Hellenic Society).
Note 8: Also, as a (paying) guest, on this trip to Sokotra was (later Sir) Ernest Nathaniel Bennett (1865-1947), academic, politician, explorer and writer; he made the sensible decision not to join the party’s onward trek into the Aden hinterlands. Assisting the Bents on this journey was their long-term dragoman, and friend, Mathew Simos from the Cycladic island of Anafi; from the time they met (the winter of 1883/4) there were only three adventures in which he did not take part: 1889 (Persia), 1891 (Great Zimbabwe), and 1895 (the Bents’ second visit to the Hadramaut). Noteworthy in this Chronicle are several rare inclusions: a unique ‘contract’ for the party’s passage from Socotra back up to Aden; a hospital bill; and a letter from the Aden authorities regarding their onward journey. Mabel was too ill to update her diary for their last few days east of Aden, but she made an effort, the relaxed style of the experienced traveller in the Sokotra sections contrasting with the feverishness and despair of what she was able to write. Her last diary entry in the field was 16 March 1897. She concluded her memoir later, but does not indicate where or when, ending her final journey with Theodore with the lines: “At last a M.M. [steamer] came from Madagascar with room for us, so one afternoon I was taken up and an ambulance litter was brought beside my bed and I was laid in it and carried down to the sea…” Return from Note 8
[A note on the labels pasted on the front covers. All Mabel’s Chronicles shown above, except for the 1883/4 volume (The Cyclades), appear to be cut from printed paper featuring a distinctive, narrow strip of zigzags. This is curious (as the notebooks cover a period of fifteen years or so), suggesting perhaps that the labels were pasted on at a later date – at around the same time? The handwriting could be Mabel’s, or that of her niece Violet Ethel ffolliott (1882-1932), who gave the notebooks to the Hellenic Society (Mabel died in 1929), or even a cataloguer at the Hellenic Society.]
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