Greek memories, like its time, defy.
Legendary philhellene photographer Robert McCabe, when in touch (June 2026) on the subject of the Bents on Patmos, made mention that his recent book Aegean Memories was in part inspired by the Bents’ travels in the Cyclades (1882-4): “For example, when we arrived on Folegandros in 1971 we asked for ‘Mr Matzas’ who in 1885 was the Mayor. The answer was ‘You mean the Mayor?’ We met him and he invited us for dinner at his home.”
Bent in his Cyclades (London 1885, p. 270) refers to a mayor of that name (on Andros), visiting from Tinos in early March 1884: “Our letter was to the eparch of Andros, a gentlemanly old man, of a Pariote family… [Eparch Matzi] inhabits a large house provided for him by Government and furnished with as few comforts as possible, for he is a bird of passage… To his wife Kyria Matzi we shall be for ever grateful, for immediately on our arrival she introduced us to the great Andriote luxury limonakki, tiny green lemons made into a jam, so deliciously soft, and so deliciously sweet, that we longed for a potful and some bread and butter. If you get a treat in the way of jam in Greece it is truly aggravating only to be able to take one teaspoonful, and to have to wash that down with raki and water.”
Mabel Bent in her Chronicle (early March 1884) endorses her husband, equally pleased with the accommodation: “We had a letter to the Eparch Matzas and we were very kindly taken in and had a very comfortable room…” (The Travel Chronicles of Mabel Bent, Vol. 1, 2006, Oxford, p. 48).
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