Author: Gerald Brisch

Bent & Garibaldi – But the ‘Princess Olga’ takes the biscuit

General Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi, 1866 (wikipedia).

There is a backstory to Bent’s The Life of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1881). Theodore Bent had left Oxford with an undistinguished history degree in the mid 1870s, met and married a distant Irish cousin, Mabel Hall-Dare, in 1877, and then promptly took his new bride off to Italy, where he was to practise ‘history’, i.e. travel, write, and research, until 1882; the couple, wealthy enough, would use their London townhouse at 43 Great Cumberland Place as an occasional retreat the while.

The heady years of the couple’s status as celebrity explorers were a decade away; as yet, Bent had no career, but he did have a devoted wife, with whom he was lucky enough to share  the traveller’s gene – that labelled ‘the need to be somewhere else’; thus he and Mabel were perfectly happy, and no thoughts of children ever appear in her diaries. Plus, as said, they were wealthy enough.

Page 200 from Bent’s “San Marino”. We see his sketch of Garibaldi’s billet in 1849 (archive.org).

For Theodore, the fruits of these (non-fully unified) ‘Italian’ years ripened into a trilogy of books, two of which he managed to get the very solid London firm of Longmans, Green & Co. to publish. The first (1879, Kegan Paul & Co.) was a lightweight, but well received, account of the tiny Republic of San Marino, illustrated by its author – Theodore’s sketches pepper nearly all his books, with Mabel adding the photos on occasion. This modest work, besides getting the couple citizenship of the little state, obviously did well enough for Bent’s second publishers, Longmans, to agree to issue next (in 1881) an indigestible tome on the great port-city of Genoa, a study only really memorable as an example of Bent’s energy and speed of output – qualities he retained all his short life, producing hundreds (see his bibliography) of articles, papers, and lectures, in addition to his six books (a seventh was to be completed by Mabel after his death in 1897).

Garibaldi as he appears in the frontispiece of Bent’s 1881 biography (archive.org).

In the same year as Genoa (1881), Bent completed his biography on Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), the hero-revolutionary. We don’t yet know why exactly took on the project, although clearly the great man was nearing the end of his life and there was always interest in him, i.e. a market for one more leather-bound volume to add to library shelves. On a personal level, the boy Bent might have read of Garibaldi’s visit to the UK in 1864 – Theodore would have been 12; the young Oxford student would have studied the exploits of the man during his historical researches, no doubt; Chapter 11 of Bent’s guide to San Marino is taken up with the General’s entry to, and escape from, its capital in the summer of 1849.

Although Garibaldi, of course, was deeply associated with Genoa, he only appears by name on one page (412) in all the 420 of Bent’s book on how the Republic rose and fell. But, inescapably, the General must have been on the young Bent’s mind (he was born in 1852) ever since his ‘honeymoon’ in San Marino, if not before. As for the author’s material and sources – well, hardly anything is referenced and there are no detailed bibliographies in any of his three ‘Italian’ books, nor even indices. We may safely assume he would have consulted what biographical information he could find, including the autobiography of his warrior hero, edited by Alexandre Dumas père and translated into English two decades previously (1860, London: Routledge & Co.).

How did Bent get his data and was it accurate? He certainly did tour the locations (often with Mabel to take notes no doubt), perhaps making earlier visits as undergraduate; he talked to witnesses, and there would have been newspapers, articles, and published accounts, but ultimately Bent gives very little away in terms of sources (a serious oversight for an academic of course). Nevertheless, his Garibaldi appears in London at the end of 1881, just months after Genoa – no little achievement when one thinks of the proofing and printing processes of the time.

The tireless champion of the Garibaldi family, Jessie White Mario (1832-1906)(wikpedia).

And immediately there are problems. The young historian finds himself under attack – the Garibaldi lion has been poked. Enter the family’s champion, the unquenchable Englishwoman Jessie White Mario (1832-1906). Needless to say, this present article isn’t nearly robust enough to accommodate her, and readers are directed elsewhere; suffice it to say that she had been devoted to, obsessed with, Garibaldi and his cause for decades – one of the hundreds of women drawn to the romantic warrior (think Che Guevara here). Evidently planning a biography herself, she was pipped to the post by Bent, and, swiftly acquiring a copy, went through it with a fine-tooth comb looking for issues, of which there was no shortage. From her villa in Lendinara (Rovigo, Veneto, northern Italy), blood up, she immediately wrote to Garibaldi’s son Ricciotti (1847-1924) – his father now infirm and passing his time on the family’s private island of Caprera, off, Sardinia – listing the inaccuracies, slanderous and actionable, as she saw them (Ricciotti, in Rome, had not yet seen a copy). She offered to enter the fray on the family’s defence and remonstrate directly with Longmans in London, insisting that they withdraw Bent’s book. Ricciotti’s reply to White Mario picks up on some of her points, accepts her offer, and asks to be sent a copy. From the list of offending passages, two examples illustrate Bent’s clear suggestions of corruption: one referencing a contract for granite from Caprera, the other a luxury yacht (some things don’t change).  note 1 

Garibaldi’s son, Ricciotti (1847-1924)(wikipedia).

The accusations by Bent are unambiguous. Good as her word, White Mario, assisted by her brother, writes angrily to Longmans, who reply promptly (and anxiously), sensing a diplomatic misunderstanding of some scale, and possibly expense. On 31  January 1882, just a few months into sales of Bent’s book, a representative of his publishers replies to White Mario, saying that Mr Bent’s (for some reason they give his name as William) “only wish has been to give an unbiased view of Garibaldi’s life: that if he had been led by false information into making any statements that are not true he much regrets it…” Additionally, Bent would be pleased to make any corrections requested, and the letter ends: “[We] shall be glad to get the matter settled with as little delay as possible, as the suspension of the sale of the book so soon after publication involves us in inconvenience and pecuniary loss.” In a further letter dated 12 April 1882, Longman’s declare the first edition of Garibaldi, a Life as being formally ‘withdrawn’.

Our guide through this above maelstrom is Elizabeth Adams Daniels, via her swashbuckling study Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary, published by Ohio University Press in 1972 (see pages 112, 142-3). (The author refers, generously, to Theodore Bent as ‘one of Longman’s popular writers on Italian subjects’, mining the publishers’ archives and other sources for evidence of White Mario’s interventions on behalf of the Garibaldi family.) note 2 

Title page of the 2nd edition of Bent’s “Garibaldi” (1882)(archive.org).

Notwithstanding this retreat before the General, a second edition of the biography does appear just a few months later, in 1882 (there was by now an eager market for it, its subject, sick and verging on bankruptcy, having been led away to fight in pastures new on 2 June of that year). Adams Daniels infers that this new iteration contained errata sheets, but these do not seem to have surfaced online. As we shall see later, when comparing extracts from the two versions, alterations were made to Bent’s text directly.

The life and times of Garibaldi drew a line under Bent’s attempts at ‘Italian’ historical memoires and there is to be no Italian ‘quartet’.  (We need only look at lines from one of the reviews: “Mr. Bent should have abstained from sneering at the evening of a life which has certainly been useful to mankind.” – The Graphic, 19 November 1881, p. 519.) The couple’s next phase of travels was to take them into the Aegean and the Levantine littoral, possibly in the wake of the merchant vessels of the Genoese Empire, eastwards, over the winter of 1882/3. The end of 1883 sees the Bents blown into the Greek islands, and the traveller’s next book, on the Cyclades, was to establish his change of locale and literary style – essentially the exploits of explorer and travel writer, themes much more suited to his nature. After the Levant, the Bents tackled Africa, and then Arabia, in 20 extraordinary years of explorations.

Thomas Norton Longman (1849–1930), one of the partners of Bent’s publishers during his association with the firm (wikipedia).

Despite the obvious loss caused to Longmans over the Garibaldi issue, the firm was, it seems, prepared to remain Bent’s publisher for his next three books (Cyclades – 1885; Mashonaland – 1892; Aksum – 1893); their investment in the travel writer paid off, all three were bestsellers and ran to several editions. These can be acquired today either as originals, from antiquarian sources, or as new reprints, or via online versions.

Bent has been in print since 1877, and well merits it.

 

Note 1: 

Textual comparisons

Page 96 of Bent’s Garibaldi (1st edn, 1881): “Caprera is rich in granite; the Pantheon at Rome was built of stone fetched from thence, and so was part of the Pisan Cathedral, and other celebrated buildings. In 1870, a contract was entered into for supplying Rome with some of it, for the improvements going on in the Eternal City. Ricciotti Garibaldi managed the affair, and put a little money into his pockets by the transaction.”

Page 96 of Bent’s Garibaldi (2nd edn, 1882): “Caprera is rich in granite ; the Pantheon at Rome was built of stone fetched from thence, and so was part of the Pisan Cathedral, and other celebrated buildings. In 1870, a contract was entered into for supplying Rome with some of it, for the improvements going on in the Eternal City, but the negotiations to a great measure fell through, and the Garibaldi family got but little money therefrom.”

Pages 234/5 of Bent’s Garibaldi (1st edn, 1881): “Garibaldi would not receive a purse from his English friends. They wished to subscribe a sum of money, which, if invested, would secure him from want for the rest of his days. As yet his sons and his son-in-law were not so deeply involved as to oblige him to take it; but he gladly accepted the yacht Osprey [Princess Olga], which they offered him, for the old General loved to skim along the blue waters of the inland sea, and there it lay for awhile at Caprera, until, as is the fate with most toys, the General got tired of it, and went out to sea in it less and less. Ricciotti Garibaldi looked on with covetous eyes at so much wealth lying idle in the harbour of Caprera, so he asked his father’s permission to go a cruise one day in the Osprey, which was readily granted, and since then the Osprey has not been seen in the waters of Caprera.”

Pages 234/5 of Bent’s Garibaldi (2st edn, 1882): Garibaldi would not receive a purse from his English friends. They wished to subscribe a sum of money, which, if invested, would secure him from want for the rest of his days; yet, notwithstanding, he gladly accepted the yacht Osprey [Princess Olga], which they offered him, for the old General loved to skim along the blue waters of the inland sea, and there it lay for awhile at Caprera, until, as is the fate with most toys, the General got tired of it, and went out to sea in it less and less; it was eventually sold to the Italian Government, and Prince Amadeo, Duca d’Aosta, went several trips of pleasure therein.”

Garibaldi’s Yacht

Crown Princess Olga Nikolaevna (1822-1892), by the greatest of contemporary portraitists, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (wikipedia).

Bent got this wrong. There was indeed some gossip (Liverpool Mercury, 2 August 1864) that Lord Burghley’s beautiful yawl the Osprey (built in Renfrew in 1854) would find her way to Garibaldi at Caprera, but the deal foundered, probably because she was too small at under 20 tons. The idea at all that a yacht should be purchased via a British subscription fund (‘The Garibaldi Yacht Fund’) took to the water in Liverpool in the early 1860s (the General knew the famous port powerhouse well). In the end it was not the Osprey but the schooner Princess Olga (built 1846) that  was acquired and crewed out to him: “General Garibaldi has accepted the yacht Princess Olga, presented to him by various friends in England and Scotland. The Princess Olga sailed from Cowes on the 24th of October [1864], and arrived all safe at St. Roques, eight miles from Gibraltar, on the 8th inst. She sailed the next morning for Caprera” (The Illustrated London News, 19 November 1864, p. 519).

The sleek-rigged vessel was named after the famed beauty Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (1822-1892), who would still have been Princess Olga in 1846 when her eponymous yacht was launched off Cowes, Isle of Wight. As wife of Charles I of Württemberg from 1864, she took the title of Queen.

As beautiful as the woman lending her her name, the ‘Princess Olga’ (foreground) rounding the Nore Light in a race on 7 July 1847, the year after her launch (hand-coloured print (detail), Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton, NMM Greenwich/Wikipedia c.c.).

The story was wired all over the Empire, e.g.: “The Princess Olga, schooner, 50 tons, has been bought by the committee of the Garibaldi fund to be presented to General Garibaldi, for his use at Caprera. This vessel was built by Mr. Joseph White, of East Cowes for Mr. Rutherford, of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, who himself furnished the design. She is built of the best India teak; copper bolted and fastened. Her internal fittings are commodious and elegant. Her saloon and ladies cabin were painted by Sang and his assistants, the fruit and flowers by Benson, the figures by Bendixen. Her head, a likeness of the Princess Olga, of Russia, was carved by [Hellyer], of Portsmouth. She is very fast, and has won many prizes, and has been long recognised as the show yacht of her class.” [Reprinted in the Launceston Examiner [Tasmania], Thursday, 15 December 1864]

And her fate? This must await another researcher: “The fact is that by 1874… people were becoming increasingly aware of the Garibaldi’s misfortunes and precarious financial condition. In 1869 he sold the yacht donated by British admirers, the Princess Olga, to the state for 80,000 lira, but the proceeds were stolen by the intermediary.” (Alfonso Scirocco: Garibaldi. Princeton University Press, 2007, p.  395)
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Note 2:  The remaining archives of Longman, Green & Co. are now kept at Reading University, UK (GB 6 RUL MS 1393), and a summary of Bent’s dealings can be found here.
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Tennis anyone? The Hall-Dares at play…

Ethel Hall-Dare, 1848-1930, later Bagenal, Mabel’s sister, as a young woman. Possibly at Newtonbarry House (The Bent Archive).

The Irish are grand on court, always have been, ever since lawn tennis took off within the Emerald Isle in the late 19th century (think John McEnroe, eligible to have played Davis Cup for Ireland, were he that way inclined, with grandparents from Co Westmeath and Co Cavan – a decent forehand away only from Co Meath and Mabel Bent’s place of birth in 1847).

Limerick Lawn Tennis Club  (“There was a young man called Dennis / who took on Hall-Dare at tennis / who can forget / his dash to the net / and subsequent trip to the dentist.”), proudly staged the first Open championships in Ireland in August 1877,  coincidentally, or not, the same year as the first Wimbledon. Simon Eaves and Robert Lake (2020) paint a rosy picture of the sport’s acme (and a decline a little later): “For a time in the 1880s and early 1890s, lawn tennis in Ireland was at its peak, and a leading nation in the sport, globally. Its players were among the world’s best, the only rival to its national championships in terms of prestige and quality of entries was Wimbledon, and its coaching professionals ranked among the world’s most sought after.”

The Irishman John Boland, winner of the the men’s singles at the first modern Olympic games, held in Athens in April 1896 (Wikipedia).

Tennis was also one of the limited number of sporting events selected for the first modern Olympics held in Athens, Greece, from 6th – 15th April, 1896, and, as chance, or not, would have it, the men’s singles was won by Dublin-born John Boland. Of course, the Bents were in Athens at the time; they attended the first day of the Games only – the tennis started a few days later.

The game was an immediate hit with Mabel’s family, the Hall-Dares, who installed grass courts on the lawns of their estate near Bunclody, Co Wexford. Among the several sports and pastimes mentioned in Mabel’s travel diaries, colonial tennis (biking was another interest) never failed to excite her, and one reference may stand for them all:

“We did not do much that day, but about 4 sat out in wintry wind to watch the tennis [Theodore and Mabel are in Bushire in the Persian Gulf]. There are 2 courts in earth [at] the Residency and a club, and they have a cricket club. With consuls, telegraph people, etc., there are about 20 Europeans. I asked one of the young ladies if she knew any Persian ladies. ‘No. I’ve never seen any. I never do like Natives.’ Once you get to Egypt anyone… is a Native – no one cares to discriminate of what country.” (1 February 1889, The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 3, Oxford, 2010)

Lawn Tennis Tournament, ‘The Gorey Correspondent and Arklow Standard’ – Saturday, August 26, 1882.

Mabel and Theodore were again travelling a few years before, in August 1882, when Mabel’s sister-in-law Caroline Hall-Dare organised a spectacular tennis tournament within the grounds of the family home, Newtonbarry House, sleepy on the banks of the brown Slaney River. We have a reporter from the  The Gorey Correspondent and Arklow Standard (Saturday, August 26, 1882) to thank for a white-flannel and parasol  account of it all:

“On Wednesday, 16th inst., a Lawn Tennis Tournament was given by Mrs Hall-Dare, at Newtonbarry House, to the ardent players of the County Wexford, who all arrived on the ground at twelve o’clock, when the drawing for partners took place. This was admirably conducted by the Rev. Canon Blacker and Mr. P.C. Newton. The games began immediately after on eight of the courts which are situated so beautifully upon the even sward which faces the mansion. After the first rounds had been played the company assembled for luncheon. In the afternoon the numbers were swelled to nearly two hundred, who witnessed, with much interest, the final rounds of this exiting Tournament.”

The fine lawns of Newtonbarry House, eminently suited to tennis, from a recent Google image.

There is nothing like keeping it in the family, and ultimately the mixed doubles winners were ‘Miss Hall Dare’ (possibly the eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Frances Hall-Dare, Caroline’s daughter, and thus one of Mabel’s nieces, but there are other candidates) and Mr R. Donovan, who beat Miss Boyd and Mr C. Donovan. There was a ‘Consolation Prize’ for those knocked out in round one, and the winners of this were Miss E. Newton and Major Knox Browne (later a distinguished soldier), who beat Caroline Hall-Dare and Mr E. Donovan (the Donovan family, perhaps of Ballymore Townland, Co Wexford, not far east of Newtonbarry, obviously also took their tennis very seriously. There is note of a Mr Richard Donovan apparently meeting his future wife at a Kilkenny tennis party).

Caroline Hall-Dare, née Newton (1842-1918), Mabel’s sister-in-law. Perhaps taken in the late 1870s at the height of her tennis prowess (The Bent Archive).

Like us, you might think it rather a shame that the event’s organizer, host, and provider of courts, won nothing. Perhaps Caroline had yet to adjust to the 1880 changes to the tennis rules, when “the hand-stitched ball was replaced by the Ayres ball, the net was lowered to 4ft at the post. The service line was brought in a distance of 21 feet from the net. A service ball touching the net was deemed to be a let and a player was forbidden to volley until it had crossed the net.” No problem at all for John McEnroe of course.

 

Irish Tennis Championships, Dublin, before 1903 (Robinson – Arthur Wallis Myers (1903): Lawn Tennis at Home and Abroad. Scribner’s Sons, New York. (online), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21618417).

Those interested in the history of Irish tennis will enjoy the three-volume study by Tom Higgins of Sligo Tennis Club. (This is mentioned really as a nod to Mabel Bent’s childhood home, Temple House, Sligo, although it is unlikely the house then had courts, in the 1850s.)

Bagpipes [tsaboúnes] on ‘Clean Monday’ [Kathará Deftéra] in the village of Dío Choriá, Tinos (the Cyclades, Greece)

(We are delighted to post here a translation (by the author) of an article on some traditional musical instruments enjoyed so much by celebrity explorers Theodore and Mabel Bent when they visited the Cycladic island of Tinos in March 1884. Dr Chiou’s article originally appeared (March 2024) in the newsletter of the Society for Tinian Studies.) 

Tinos, the villages of Dío Choriá and Triandáros. A postcard, photographer unknown, printed by Krikelli – ‘Bibliohartemboriki’, c. early 20th century (some 20 years only after the Bents’ visit in March 1884). Reproduced in A. Kontogeorgis (2000), ‘Tinos of Yesterday and Today’, p. 30 (PIIET/Sillogos Ysternioton Tinou).

By Dr Theodoros Chiou note 1 

Theodore Bent and his wife Mabel Virginia Anna Bent were 19th-century British explorers who travelled the Cyclades. On a sunny Saturday afternoon in March 1884, they found themselves in the port of the island of Tinos (or Tenos), coming from Mykonos. It was the Saturday before Carnival Sunday. On the evening of the same day, koukouyiéroi (masqueraders) roamed around the narrow streets of Agios Nikolaos, as the present-day Chóra was called at that time. For the next three days, the Bents mounted mules and toured the Tinian hinterland. On Carnival Sunday they visited Xómbourgo and Loutrá and returned to Chóra. On ‘Kathará Deftéra’ (the first Monday in Lent, literally ‘Clean Monday’), 1884, they climbed up to Kechrovoúni, visiting the Monastery of Kechrovoúni, Arnádos village, and ending up in the village of Dío Choriá. On Tuesday they reached the village of Pýrgos, after making a stop at the villages of Kardianí and Ystérnia, in the north-western part of the island. Mabel writes in her diary that on Wednesday, 5th March, they returned to the bay of Ystérnia, where they boarded the steamer that would take them to the nearby island of Andros.

The above information comes from what Bent himself recorded in his classic travelogue The Cyclades, or Life among Insular Greeks, published in 1885, and which is still in print today, and from the account in Mabel’s ‘Chronicles’. Thanks to Bent’s observant and meticulous descriptions, we have the following account of how the inhabitants of the village of Dío Choriá spent their ‘Kathará Deftéra’ at the end of 19th century:

Close to Arnades are two villages, called δύοχωριά, or the two places, being quite close together; and here we came in for some of the gaiety incident on the first day of Lent; the sound of music and revelry filled the valley, and from afar off we descried the cause. All the villagers had turned out on the roofs, and on this flat surface were dancing away vigorously. As no other flat space occurs in or near the village they are driven to make a ballroom on their roof. […]

The dancers had put a flag up, and spread a white cloth on the roof for their repast, which consisted of olives, onions, bread, and wine in a large amphora. They were dancing to the tune of a sabouna, and what to us was a new instrument, called a monosampilos, and consisting of a small gourd fixed at one end of two reeds and a cow’s horn at the other. The music produced by this instrument was quaint and shrill, like that of a bagpipe or the sabouna, which in this case was made of the skin of a goat, with all the hair left on, so that when the musician put it down it looked quite alive, and palpitated visibly.

For a long time they continued to dance the inevitable syrtos, until they had had lusty and long pulls at their amphora of wine – and the wine of Tenos is by no means light, for here they made, and make still, the far-famed Malvasianor, or, as we know it better, Malmsey wine. […] Then they started a dance called by them ‘the carnival dance’ (ἀποκρεωτικός), which they said they were privileged to dance on the first day of Lent. It was a very amusing one: eight men took part in it with arms crossed, and moved slowly in a semicircle, with a sort of bounding step, resembling a mazurka. Occasionally the leader took a long stride, by way of adding point to the dance, but they never indulged in the acrobatic features of the syrtos, and never went so very fast; the singing as they danced was the chief feature and fascination of this carnival dance, and their voices, as they moved round and round, to the shrill accompanying music, had a remarkable effect. The words of their song, which I took down afterwards, formed a sort of rhyming alphabetical love song. It is needless to say that A stood for love (ἀγάπη). Θ spoke of the death (θάνατος) which would be courted if that M or apple (μῆλος) of Paradise was obdurate. P stood for ῥόδον, the rose, like which she smelt. Ψ was the lucky flea (ψύλλος) which could crawl over her adorable frame, and so on, till Ω closed the song and the dance with great emphasis, imploring for a favourable answer to the suit.

The ‘monotsábouno’ that Bent acquired in March 1884 from the village of Dío Choriá, Tinos, on ‘Kathará Deftéra’ (Βent records it as ‘monosampilos’). © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, Accession number: 1903.130.21.

This vivid description is a valuable document in terms of the history of the bagpipe (tsaboúna) on Tinos. It confirms the use of the tsaboúna (pronounced there as ‘saboúna’) as an instrument played at feasts during the Carnival period, and with which they performed not only tunes to the rhythm of the syrtós, but also to the tune of the ‘ἀποκρεωτικός’ (apokreotikós) dance. The latter can be associated with the ‘apokrianós’ dance, also performed, until the middle of the 20th century, in the nearby village of Triantáros. Bent also gives us information about the morphology of the tsaboúna (a goatskin bag with the hair on the outside), and conveys an important account of a rare folk hornpipe, which the 19th-century revellers from Dío Choriá, who sold it to Bent, called ‘monotsábouno’ (while villagers from Ystérnia called it ‘kelkéza’). We are fortunate that this very same instrument survives intact to the present day in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

However, if one has to choose the most important contribution of Bent’s testimony above, then it must be that it offers us the earliest starting point – a terminus ante quem – for research into the tsaboúna on Tinos. Of course, it can be reasonably assumed that the tradition of the tsaboúna on the island is much older, being a manifestation of the wider, older spread of the bagpipe (áskavlos) in the Aegean Sea area. However, thanks to Bent, the tsaboúna is now undoubtedly and tangibly recorded as part of the Tinian musical tradition.

The thread of this tradition connects the unknown tsaboúna player (tsabouniéris) of Dío Choriá of 1884 with the tsaboúna players of the 1970s, who played the ‘saboúnia persistently in Carnival season’ in the village of Arnados, and also reaches back to the last tsabouniéris of the 20th-century generation of musicians, for example Yiórgos Tzanoulínos, or ‘Krínos’, from Falatádos. The thread of this tradition goes ahead with the reappearance of the tsaboúna on Tinos in the second decade of the 21st century, in the context of, among others, events such as the Tinos World Music Festival 2021; The 18th Aegean Folk Wind Instruments Meeting (28-30 September 2022, Kea Island); and during New Year’s carols on Tinos at Chóra and Falatádos (2022 and 2023).

So, what more enjoyable occasion than to continue the revival of the Tinian tsaboúna, from the place where Bent first records for us, at a ‘Kathará Deftéra’ celebration in March 1884, with a tsaboúna party and ‘apokrianós’ dance in the square of Dío Choriá, more than a century and a half later!

Note 1: Dr Theodoros Chiou is a Copyright Lawyer, Adj. University Lecturer, and President of the Society for Tinian Studies.
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Sources

7th Tinos World Music Festival, Tinos, 2-4 July 2021, Sunday, 4 July 2021, Part B: Tsambouna – The Askavlos of the Cyclades (https://itip.gr/events/twmf2021/).

Apergis, Savas 2007. The ‘Apokrianos’ of Triantaros, newspaper ed. by the Association of Triandarites Mandata, vol. 28, Dec-Feb 2007: 6-7.

Baines, Anthony 1960. Bagpipes: 45. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

Bent, J. Theodore 2009 [1885]. The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks: 123-131. Annotated revised edition, Archaeopress, Oxford.

Bent, Mabel V.A. 2006. The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Volume I: Greece and the Levantine Littoral: 47. Archaeopress, Oxford.

Brisch, G.E. 2024. The Bents’ musical instruments in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (article dated 5 Feb. 2024).

Danousis, Konstantinos (ed.) 2005. Tradition and Memory. With the bow and the pen of Kostas Panorios, publication of the Society for Tinian Studies and the Brotherhood of Tinian Cardianiotes, The Holy Trinity: 30-31.

Moschona, Styliani 1975. Collection of folklore material from the village of Arnados, on the island of Tinos, in the prefecture of Cyclades. Archive of primary folklore material – Collection of manuscripts (NKUA), no. 2413.

Two other Bent Archive articles that might interest you:

 

the island bagpipes (tsabouna) played by Yannis Pantazis of Santorini.

Theodore and the Tsabouna (video)

VIDEO – Manolis Pelekis: A lament for the great tsabouna player from Anafi

 

 

 

Manolis Pelekis playing on Anafi one Easter (photo: The Bent Archive)

 

16 June – Bloomsday greetings James, from the Bents

Irish republican, revolutionary, suffragette, and actress – Maud Gonne (1866-1953)(wikipedia).

With our Irish connections, we always ferret about looking for Joycean links on 16 June. There aren’t any, as far as we know, other than that Theodore and Mabel once sat to dinner with Maud Gonne (1866-1953) in Constantinople – “a tall and handsome damsel dressed in white Broussa gauze, who says she means to go on the stage” (April 1888, Vol 1, Mabel Bent’s Travel Chronicles, Oxford, 2006, p.255). Yeats provided Gonne with contact information to Joyce before he left for Paris in 1902, but they never hooked up. Of course, there is always a chance that Mabel and Joyce (or Nora Joyce) once breathe the same Dublin air. Bloomsday greetings James, from the Bents…

A watercolour of Syros in the mid 19th century by Edward Lear; ‘the old sparkly pile’ he called it (diary entry for Wednesday, 6 April 1864).

Maud confirms her visit to Constantinople at that date in a later autobiography, and recounts various doings there; but there is no mention of dining with the Bents in particular. Clearly they left no deep impression on the theatrical Gonne, who surely didn’t feel it was appropriate telling Mabel about her amatory incident, at pistol point,  on Syra – a favourite Cycladic island for Theodore and Mabel. If she had, then Mabel would certainly have jotted it down in her diary that night. Here is Maud’s adventure ashore, worth telling in some detail. Potentially, of course, it could have been serious and dangerous, but Maud, characteristically, makes light of it (Mabel would have done the same – but chances are she would have let off a round or two for good measure.) Let’s give the stage to Maud Gonne, and remember she’s barely more than 20:

“[At] dinner I asked the Captain when we should arrive at Syra in Greece which was our first stopping place. ‘To-morrow, but the storm has made us late; we shall only stay for coaling.’ And, seeing my eagerness, he added: ‘You mustn’t go ashore. It isn’t at all safe for ladies. Some very unpleasant things have happened at Syra and I have been obliged to forbid all lady passengers going ashore there.’

“The second in command was a bearded Corsican who looked like a brigand, had fine eyes and was very attentive to me. Leaning over the rail in the darkness we discussed Napoleon, whose memory he worshipped and I ventured to ask him about landing at Syra; for the one thing I longed for was to be on land. People talk of the glorious sense of freedom on the sea. I always feel in prison on a ship, even in fine weather. He shook his head: ‘’No, no, Mademoiselle, the captain’s orders are absolute and he is right; no ladies may land, and you are too beautiful. If I could take you . . . But that is impossible; we are all too busy, no one may go ashore.’ There was no help to be got even from a bearded Corsican who looked like a brigand and was so ready to make love that I retired early to my cabin with my chaperone and the little girl who was an Armenian orphan brought up by French nuns and was going out to another convent of the Order to teach French. She had never been outside the convent before. She was not more than fifteen years of age.

Bent’s map of the Cyclades from the first edition of his 1885 book (archive.org). Click here for a modern Google map showing Syros.

“Next morning the sun was shining brightly, but no land in sight. I was longing for land, longing for it with all my might. An old Turk with a long grey beard was strolling on the deck. He was a person of consequence, and on the deck a large canvas awning had been arranged behind which the ladies of his harem were sheltered from indiscreet gaze. I didn’t think he would help me to land, but I thought it would be amusing to meet the ladies of his harem. He looked at me gravely, even kindly, as he passed and we spoke a little and I told him I was going on a visit to the daughter of the British Ambassador; but I didn’t ask him about landing at Syra or about visiting his wives; for this last enterprise I thought the stewardess would be the best approach and it seemed to me that the advance should come from the ladies themselves. That could wait; there were still four days before we were to arrive at Constantinople and we were just approaching Syra.

“It was five o’clock when the ship stopped and was at once surrounded by crowds of boats and chattering Levantines selling all sorts of things to the passengers who were all on deck. The coaling barge was busy at one end. I heard it would take about two or three hours before the ship would start again. A Greek selling various trinkets and souvenirs smiled at me ingratiatingly and offered me his wares. He spoke a little Italian, I showed him a fifty-franc note and pointed to the shore and managed to strike a bargain with him to row me there and back for it, and, in the crowd, unnoticed, I slipped down the ladder into his boat and was soon on shore. My little chaperone* was sitting on my shoulder sheltered in my veil and my revolver was in my pocket.

The Grand Hôtel D’Angleterre, Ermoúpoli (Sýros)
The Grand Hôtel D’Angleterre, Ermoúpoli, Sýros, where the Bents liked to stay. Maud Gonne would have strolled by it during her risky shore leave.

“It was great to be on land again. I went to the post office and sent off postcards and wandered happily among the shops in dark, narrow streets, bought Turkish delight and pots of rose-leaf jam and cigarettes and flowers, the Greek acting as cicerone; I was glad to get rid of him at last at a cafe on the harbour where I could keep an eye on our ship and on the time while I drank coffee and ate strange cakes.

“The boats were getting thin round our ship and I had been two hours on land. My Greek guide had not returned. I thought he must be drinking wine somewhere and I tried to enquire of the waiter as I paid my bill, but he spoke only Greek and was of no help; so I decided to go down to the place where I had landed and the Greek had left his boat. He was not paid; so I felt he was sure to turn up. He was there all right with two other sailor-men sitting in the boat. I got in and told him to start. He seemed in no hurry and said there was lots of time. I told him to start at once and he said something to the sailors who lazily began rowing. It was a marvellous evening. The lights on the sea were enchanting and the town looked white and fairy-like. I was very happy. Then I noticed the sailors were rowing in an opposite direction from that of the ship. My guide was not rowing this time, but sitting on the seat facing me; I pointed to the ship and told him to tell them to go there. He smiled and explained they were going to show me a beautiful point of view. I got angry and told him to turn the boat at once. He only laughed and the men rowed quicker.

Maud Gonne, the frontispiece from “A Servant Of The Queen: Reminiscences”, 1938 (archive.org).

“Suddenly I stood up with my revolver pointed straight at him and said: ‘Obey, or I fire.’ The men stopped rowing and there was some quick talk in Greek and the boat turned and rowed to the ship. I sat down, but I kept my revolver pointed but as much hidden as I could. I never took my eyes off my guide till we were at the ship’s side and I tossed him the fifty-franc note and scrambled up the ladder while the sailors passed up my many parcels. My Corsican friend was at the ladder. ‘Mademoiselle, you almost missed the boat. The Captain knows; he is very angry.’ I thought it wiser to say nothing about the difficulty I had had in catching it, and when, at dinner, the Captain was coldly severe about my disregard of his orders. I pleaded that I, not being a sailor like himself, had such a terrible nostalgia to be on land that I could not expect men who were used to the sea to understand; it was my first voyage, and I was all alone and he must forgive; which he did with good grace, for he could do nothing else, merely remarking I was very young and didn’t understand the danger, but he hoped I would not try it again at Smyrna which was our next place of call, or if I did land, for we would make a longer stop there as he had cargo to discharge, I would find a proper escort. ‘None of these ports are safe for young women alone.’”

* A marmoset Maud bought in Marseilles a few days before leaving for Constantinople.

The extracts are from Maud Gonne Macbride, A Servant Of The Queen: Reminiscences, 1938, London, pp. 68-71.

Rosita Forbes

A portrait of Rosita Forbes, from her 1921 book ‘The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara’; BHL25263784 (Wikipedia).

It’s always a pleasure on these pages to present a great lady traveller and writer from the era of Mabel Bent… so, here we introduce Rosita Forbes, F.R.G.S. (16 January 1890 – 30 June 1967), a wonderful character, controversial at times – easily springing from between the covers of Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, even  Agatha Christie – and, by huge coincidence,  for a time she was also a close neighbour of Mrs Theodore Bent,

Her story, of course, is on too grand a scale to go into in any detail here, and no better introduction to recommend is Duncan Smith’s pacey and wonderfully illustrated essay.

Riseholm Hall, near Lincoln, UK, birthplace of Rosita Forbes in January 1890 (Wikipedia).

What interests us are Rosita’s links to the Bents. On the day of her birth, Thursday, 16 January 1890, at swanky Riseholme Hall, near Lincoln, the Bents were sitting on their packed trunks to get them closed before embarking that Saturday for the western shores of Turkey and their imminent discovery of Olba. Here is Mabel’s diary at the time:  “We left England on Saturday night, January 18th [1890], the waves dashing over the steamer from the other side of Dover pier, and neither stopped not stayed, till we stopped for the night at Lucerne at the Hôtel St. Gothard, close to the station and very comfortable…” (The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, vol 1, Oxford, 2006, p.269).

After driving ambulances (Hemingway again) in the Great War the rural lanes of Lincolnshire were too solitary for Rosita and she began an extensive sequence of travels in Asia and Africa culminating in her first book Unconducted Wanderers (1919).

We don’t know, but in her reading and preparation for her travels it is very likely that she hit upon the Bents (although Theodore was dead by the time she was eight). Her great 1925 book From Red Sea to Blue Nile – Abyssinian Adventure opens in Aden, a base the Bents used frequently for their expeditions in the area. (Both pioneers, Mabel was the first European woman to venture voluntarily into the Wadi Hadramaut, and Rosita the first to the Kufra Oasis in Libya.) It is hard to believe that the latter did not pack Mabel’s Southern Arabia in her saddlebags to read in Aden – the scene, of course, of Theodore’s final adventure.

Theodore's map of Ethiopia (photo: The Bent Archive)
Theodore’s map of Ethiopia (photo: The Bent Archive)

And more directly, in From Red Sea to Blue Nile (opening with its wonderful dedication, ‘To Abyssinia And Her Heir-Apparent, H.I.H., Ras Tafari’, we get specific references to the Bents’ trek to fabled Aksum in Ethiopia in 1893, writing, page 348, that Theodore ‘commemorated his journey in a most interesting book, The Sacred City of the Ethiopians‘. Again, it seems most unlikely that she would not have had a copy with her as she sailed across the Red Sea to Somalia to begin her ride north, and write, this from her Foreword, ‘the record of three months on muleback, the story of what happened… during an eleven hundred mile trek through mountains and forests, rivers and deserts in search of photographic material. It is a tale of adventures, serious and frivolous, of what we saw and heard and did between the Red Sea and the Blue Nile, but it is only an impression of Abyssinia as she appeared from tent and saddle.’ And during her time in Ethiopia she was never far from the routes followed by the Bents.

 

In any event was born at Riseholme Hall, near Lincoln, England, th . Even if not before 1925, we know the adventuress consulted Bent in the course of her trip to Ethiopia in … and there a several references to Theodore’s classic… in her own account….1923/4

Dedicated “i”

And then there is the serendipitous role of Great Cumberland Place – the thoroughfare in London linking Marble Arch to

she would know south arabia for her Aden etc stuff

other famous residents nelli melba

Dedicated “To Abyssinia And Her Heir-Apparent, H.I.H., Ras Tafari”

She was married again in 1921, to Col. Arthur Thomas McGrath.

Starting from aden

map?

Mabel’s museum

Rosita and her husband moved in to ?? in late ???? and immediately began a renovation project…

Meanwhile, down (or up) the road at No. 13, the by then  long-widowed Mabel Bent had been renting her London townhouse (her country residence was Sutton Hall, outside Macclesfield, Cheshire) since ????, prior to that the couple rented No. ?? No. 13 very soon became a cross between a depository and a museum, acting as the point of arrival for most of the Bents’ acquisitions – wonderful things from Aksum to Zimbabwe.

But did Rosita and Mabel ever meet? The two travellers only overlapped as it were in Great Cumberland Place for half a year or so, the latter months of 192? and the Spring and Summer of 1929, and by then Mabel was elderly and perhaps not receiving callers – she died on ???, with her nieces in attendance (in 1926 they had already begun the process of clearing out and selling off the more precious things – the British Museum being the major benefactor).

Rosita, well aware of the Bents and their twenty years of incredible travel, must have known that Mabel was living a few metres from her.  Firm evidence of a meeting might one day surface, but for now we can image the two formidable explorers, taking no nonsense from men, sharing tea (or a whiskey) in one of Mabel’s drawing-room and discussing the contents of it, perhaps the Ethiopian chair Mabel returned with in 1893, the style of which Rosita was familiar with from her own ???? adventure.

One topic Mabel might not have raised, or not without a good few Irish curses, was Rosita’s Fellowship of London’s Royal Geographical Society.  Mabel was on the list for the second tranche of women Fellows in the early 1890s, until the Admirals who ran the show scuppered the rights of women to join. The process was not reopened for them until ???, with Rosita getting her Fellowship in ???

Some …. would make a diverting and curious documentary … h both women travelled many thousands of miles, but that mere 100 metres or so that separated them may well have been steps too far… down Great Cumberland Place, W1.

In the wake of Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797-1858)

Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797-1858) (wikipedia).

No list of indomitable women travellers would be complete without a reference to the incredible Ida Laura Pfeiffer, in whose footprints Mabel occasionally followed. Although the latter never refers directly to the Austrian globetrotter in her diaries, Mabel would certainly have known of her, and probably read Ida’s travel accounts, several of which were already translated into English in her time. Ida died when Mabel Hall-Dare was just a girl of ten or so in the south of Ireland.

One among many of the locations they both were to visit was the island of Rhodes (then a Turkish province for both Ida and Mabel). Here is Pfeiffer on Rhodes’ famous main harbour in late May 1842 (trans from the German by  H.W. Dulcken):

Cover to the English edition ot Ida Pfeiffer’s “A Visit to the Holy Land” (archive.org).

“This morning, shortly after five o’clock, we ran into the superb harbour of Rhodes. Here, for the first time, I obtained a correct notion of a harbour. That of Rhodes is shut in on all sides by walls and masses of rock, leaving only a gap of a hundred and fifty to two hundred paces in width for the ships to enter. Here every vessel can lie in perfect safety, be the sea outside the bar as stormy as it may; the only drawback is, that the entering of this harbour, a task of some difficulty in calm weather, becomes totally impracticable during a storm. A round tower stands as a protection on either side of the entrance to the harbour.” (Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt, and Italy, London, 1853, p.86)

And here is Mabel Bent (she married Theodore in 1877) putting up with some tricky February weather in the same harbour region some thirty years later, in 1885, endorsing Ida’s observation about bad weather:

A view of Rhodes’ great harbour from C.T. Newton’s “Travels & Discoveries in the Levant” (London, 1865). The folly that is ‘Naillac’s Tower’ (left) would have been enjoyed by Ida, but was toppled by the time Mabel was in the offing in 1885 (archive.org).

“The day seems quite over, it is half past six, and a most anxious day we have passed with the yellow flag waving us. We got to Rhodes about 3 but did not settle till 5 and the health officers did not come till 7. The Captain asked leave to go to a bay to shelter if storm came on, or the open sea, but they said no, if we wanted pratigue he must remain there. But the Captain told us that sooner than lose or damage the ship he would go off with us and the two guardians to Smyrna. Great therefore was our horror at 3.30 p.m. to hear all the noises of a start, after having observed that it was getting rougher, but we only went round the corner of the island to shelter on the eastern side and hope to be returned to the capital tomorrow morning. In the mean time no one has been able to communicate in any way with the shore. It has been pouring most of the day.” (The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J Theodore Bent, vol 1, Oxford, 2006, p.68)

For the Bents on Rhodes and in the Dodecanese, see The Dodecanese: Further Travels Among the Insular Greeks (Oxford, 2015).

A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Middle East’ articles/publications.

The region of the ‘Wadi Hadramut’, Yemen, the setting for three explorations by the Bents in the 1890s (archive.org).

The Bents’ third significant field of studies was the Middle East, beginning with an expedition to the ‘Mounds of Ali’, Bahrain (1889), followed weeks later by an historic horseback journey, south-north, through Persia. Bent’s interest in the ‘Phoenicians’ piqued, the celebrity explorers embarked on three adventures between 1894-7, to the Yemen (specifically the inhospitable ‘Wadi Hadramut‘, including stays in Muscat, Oman, and Sokotra). These tours generated an extensive corpus of popular and more ‘academic’ articles (historical, ‘archaeological’ and ‘ethnographic’ in content). Along the way they acquired artefacts, ancient and modern, that they would seek to sell or retain for their private London collection. The British Museum, for example, has a large collection of their material. The rigours of travel finally took their toll on Theodore Bent; he died, aged just 45, shortly after returning from Aden (5 May 1897). Had he lived, he would certainly have written a book or two encompassing these adventures, as it transpired, it was left to his widow, Mabel, to assemble the comprehensive monograph that remains the great tribute to their work in Southern Arabia (1900).

Bent’s writings on the Middle East by year of publication:

1889

1890

1891

1893

1894

1895

1897

 

For Bent’s overall bibliography click here.

A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Africa’ articles/publications (based on today’s borders).

Theodore's map of Ethiopia (photo: The Bent Archive)
Bent’s map of Ethiopia (1893) (The Bent Archive).

The Bents’ second significant field of studies (after the Turkish littoral and the Aegean) was the African continent, beginning with a ‘tourist’ visit in early 1885 to Egypt, taking in such sine qua nons as the Pyramids. The great breakthrough for the celebrity explorers was a commission from Cecil Rhodes to investigate in 1891 the ruins of Great Zimbabwe (in today’s Zimbabwe), followed by adventures in Ethiopia (Aksum, 1893), and the Sudan (1896), generating an extensive corpus of popular and more ‘academic’ articles (historical, ‘archaeological’ and ‘ethnographic’ in content). Along the way they acquired artefacts, ancient and modern, that they would seek to sell or retain for their private London collection. The British Museum, for example, has a large collection of their material. Two best-selling monographs resulted from these expeditions to Africa: The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (1892) and The Sacred City of the Ethiopians (1893).

Bent’s writings on Africa (today’s boundaries) by year of publication:

1892

1893

1896

For a consolidated Bent bibliography click here.

A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Turkey and Asia Minor’ articles/publications (based on today’s borders).

“Our ship” The Bents anchor their sloop, “Evangelistria”, off the Turkish coast in 1888, not far from modern Fethiye. Bent has drawn in their ship on an Admiralty chart of the time.

The Bents’ first significant field of studies was the Turkish littoral and Aegean, beginning with a ‘tourist’ visit in early 1883, taking in such sites as Delphi and Mycenae. This trip inspired a decade-long passion for these celebrity explorers (with a tour more or less every year), generating an extensive corpus of popular and more ‘academic’ articles (historical, ‘archaeological’ and ‘ethnographic’ in content). Along the way they acquired artefacts, ancient and modern, that they would seek to sell or retain for their private London collection. The British Museum, for example, has a large collection of their material.

Bent’s writings on Turkey and Asia Minor (today’s boundaries) by year of publication:

1883

1885

1887

1888

1889

1890

1891

1892

  • ‘The Two Capitals of Armenia (Sis and Etchmiadz՝m)’. Eastern and Western Review (not seen; page numbers n/a).

1896

 

For a consolidated Bent bibliography click here.

A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Greece’ articles/publications (based on today’s borders).

Bent’s map from the first edition of his 1885 book, “The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks”  (archive.org)

The Bents’ first significant field of studies was the Aegean, beginning with a ‘tourist’ visit in early 1883, taking in such sites as Delphi and Mycenae. This trip inspired a decade-long passion for these celebrity explorers (with a tour more or less every year), generating Bent’s classic guide to the Cyclades (perhaps he is partly to blame for the islands’ current over-tourism in the summer months today), and a substantial corpus of popular and more ‘academic’ articles (historical, ‘archaeological’ and ‘ethnographic’ in content). Along the way they acquired artefacts, ancient and modern, that they would seek to sell or retain for their private London collection. The British Museum, for example, has a large collection of their material.

Bent’s writings on Greece (today’s boundaries) by year of publication:

1883

1884

1885

1886

1887

1888

1889

1891

For Bent’s overall bibliography click here.