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.]
The recent death of Ratan Tata (28 December 1937 – 9 October 202) has prompted this reposting of an article (Jan 2021) linking this famous family to Mabel Bent. Ratan was the son of Naval Tata, who was adopted by Ratanji Tata, the son of Jamshedji Tata; the latter, of course, was the founder of the Tata Group. Mabel attended Jamshedji’s funeral in Surrey (UK) on 24 May 1904; her association with the family remains unknown.
“And now I think we are among the most remarkable people in this world. Fancy going all the way to Bombay and departing thence without ever landing!” (from Mabel Bent’s Chronicleof 1889)
The tomb of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata (1839-1904), Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey (wikipedia).
We begin our essay on Theodore and Mabel Bent and India not at the Taj Mahal, nor the Ellora Caves, but in leafy Brookwood Cemetery (Surrey, UK), an hour from London, on May 24, 1904:
“And why, it may be asked, were so many Indian and English friends gathered… in such a place on a dismal day in a downpour of rain? The day was dismal, and rightly so, for the obsequies were being performed of Mr. Jamsetdjee Nusserwanjee Tata, the foremost citizen, taken all round, that India has produced during the long period of British rule over the most cultured and civilised people east of Suez…”
For it seems, indeed, that Mabel Bent, and perhaps Theodore too, although dead and buried himself these seven years, was a friend, or at least an acquaintance, of the extraordinary Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata (1839-1904), the pioneer Indian industrialist who founded the Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate company (as at 2021).
And in the same periodical that reports the industrialist’s funeral – the Voice of India, Saturday, 18 June 1904 (p. 583) – we have an image of Mabel, bearing flowers, her long red hair tucked under a black hat:
“From Mr. N.J. Moola I have received the following list of inscriptions attached to the wonderfully beautiful and choice flowers that were an eloquent expression of the affection in which Mr. Tata was held…”
And included in this list we find: ‘With deep sympathy, from Mrs. Theodore Bent,’ and Mabel remained friends with the family, as a cutting from the Belfast Evening Telegraph of Monday, June 28, 1913, indicates: “Mrs. Theodore Bent’s recent evening party was as great a success as her other functions have always been, and was particularly noticeable for the number of distinguished foreign and Colonial guests present. The suite of beautiful rooms, which form a perfect museum of curios from all parts of the world, were looking their best, and were crowded with guests of many nationalities, many of the ladies wearing diamonds in the form of tiaras and other ornaments, some of the handsomest being displayed by a Parsee lady, Mrs. Ratan Tata, who had splendid sapphires set into diamond frames as a necklace, and also for securing her white saree.”
To be able to associate Mabel, the archetypal Victorian, with the legendary ‘Father of Indian Industry’ seems somehow an unusual but fanfaring introduction to the Bents and India, with all the dynamics and symbolism in play between the nations at the end of the 19th century. India meant something, and meant adventures in and around the region for the Bents.
A little scene-setting: one of Edward Lear’s “Indian Trees, Palms and Bamboos” from his 1873/5 journey. Ten years later Lear was to receive a copy of Theodore Bent’s book on the Cyclades (from ‘A Blog of Bosh’).
In all, our couple made three trips to India – not the London, ten-hour flight to Mumbai of today, but then, of course, traversing several seas (the Suez Canal was opened to navigation on 17 November, 1869). Let it be known, Theodore never expressed any sustained interest in exploring or excavating regionally in India, nor to travel and write about its culture; it seems the idea of the land was just too big for him to provide any focus or purchase, and there was something, too, in his psychology, that did not fit. And yet, such was the meaning of India, it would have been extraordinary indeed were he never to have set foot on the Asian continent. Thus, concisely, we can condense their trips to India into: one business meeting (1895), two transit stops (1889 and 1894), and one brief tourist excursion (1895).
But it was India nevertheless.
Theodore wrote no articles directly relating to these visits, the name ‘India’ appearing in just one title. For Mabel, her diary entries are strangely muted (as we shall read in a moment): there is no colour, no sensory Indian overload, as if British control of the ports they landed at and left from, without much exploration, had thrown an odd English and subfusc wash over everything.
P.&O.’s ad from ‘A handbook for travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon’ (J. Murray 1911, archive.org).
Their first Asian visit was in December 1889 – in a dramatic volte face and characteristic burst of energy and enthusiasm from Theodore that was to launch the couple out of their Eastern-Mediterranean orbit – having been denied further rights to ‘explore’ in either Greece or Turkey – and project them thousands of kilometres eastwards, for Bahrain, then under British and India Office protection, and with Theodore at relative liberty therefore to shovel-and-pick his way there through the ‘Mounds of Ali’. His fuel for this foray was an interest he had by the end of the 1890s in various long-standing theories and Classical references that seemed to link Bahrain with the Phoenicians, and in turn to the movement of early peoples around the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond – perhaps the theme that could be said to be the pivot of his short life’s work; his means of taking himself and his wife to Bahrain was via a slow boat from Karachi, then in India and under the British Raj. But their first port of call was to be Bombay.
Map from “A handbook for travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon” (J. Murray 1911, archive.org).
The summer of 1888 was taken up, as usual, with Theodore conducting a busy schedule of talks and lectures in England and Scotland, as well as a non-stop programme of article-writing and publishing. Late summer was the time for extended holidays in Ireland and northern England, seeing family and friends, and so it was not until after Christmas 1888 that Theodore and Mabel had everything in place to leave London. Through Suez, and changing at Aden, they reached Mumbai (then Bombay) after three weeks, and immediately left for Karachi and a cruise up the eastern side of the Persian Gulf; making a brief halt at Muscat, before crossing to Bushire, arriving there on 1 February 1889. From there they crossed the Gulf once more to reach Bahrain. (Their finds there, now in the British Museum, were modest and the couple spent only two weeks on the island.) By the end of February 1889 the couple are leaving again for Bushire, Mabel adding in her diary: ‘having passed 40 days and 40 nights of our precious time on the sea, we then and there made up our minds to return over land…’ And with this throwaway remark, Mabel announces the couple’s epic ride of some 2000 km through Persia, the first leg of their journey home to Marble Arch.
But let us now peer over Mabel’s shoulder and read her ‘Chronicle’ while she writes on the “British India S.S. Pemba, January 21st 1889, Monday. Passing Gujarat, India”
P&O’s SS ‘Rosetta’ in 1884 (photo taken by Walter Cunningham Hume). The Bents travelled on her from England to Aden in early 1889, where they changed to the P.&O. ‘Assam’ and then the B.I. ‘Pemba’ (courtesy of Nicholas Messinger).
“I now for the first time [Monday, 21st January 1889] feel tempted to bring forth this book, as I am so soon to get off the beaten track. Theodore and I left London on December 28th (Friday) in the P.&O.S.S. Rosetta, not a very comfortable or clean ship and landed at Naples (Saturday) on the way and changed at Aden (Monday), with no time to land, to the P.&O. Assam, which, though smaller, is wider and has much better passenger accommodation and was very clean.
A plan of Bombay from “A handbook for travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon” ( J. Murray 1911, archive.org).
“We reached Bombay on Sunday 20th [January 1889] after a roughish time in the Indian Ocean, passing on Saturday the American racing yacht Coronet going round the world. There were few passengers on the ‘Assam’. And now I think we are among the most remarkable people in this world. Fancy going all the way to Bombay and departing thence without ever landing! We found the tender of the British India waiting hungrily for us and were carried off with the mails at once. This [i.e. the ‘Pemba’] is a very small ship and only one passenger for Kurrachi 1st class, but quantities of odd deck passengers dressed and the reverse. We have a cabin next to the little ladies’ cabin and their bath and all in communication, so Theodore has a dressing room and we are most comfortable. We are to call at several places on our way to Bushire. The sea is very calm and it is nice and cool and we are passing a coast like Holland with palms, or rather coconut trees.
Karachi and its environs. From “A handbook for travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon” (J. Murray 1911, archive.org).
“We reached Kurrachi on Wednesday 23rd [January 1889] about 2 o’clock, and being tempted by the thought of 2 nights ashore, landed. We were surprised at the immense fleet of huge sailing boats which surrounded the ship instead of the usual little ones, but we were a good way out. They are building a new lighthouse further back and on lower ground but higher in itself, as the present one is being shaken by the guns on Manora Point.
Manora Point from “Kurrachee Past, Present And Future” by Alexander F Baillie, p. 62, 1890, Calcutta (archive.org).
“On landing on the bunder, or quay, we took a carriage for Reynold’s Hotel. After leaving the bunder, where various shipping buildings are, we drove for a mile or more along the bund, or embankment, across water and in about 6 miles we reached our destination. All around is arid and sandy but they are making a fierce fight to rear up some dusty plantains, palms, pepper trees, etc. The hotel was a great disappointment as the establishment is just a one-storeyed bungalow with a veranda all round and everyone’s door opening on to it and most with no kind of blind to prevent the inmates being beheld by outsiders. We found ourselves, when night came, in this case and so without ceremony flitted to a suite next door with imitation coloured glass. There was a dressing room behind and a built bath cemented in a bathroom beyond. All was very untidy and wretched and when night came we wished ourselves on board the ‘Pemba’.
Empress Market from “Kurrachee Past, Present And Future” by Alexander F Baillie, frontispiece, 1890, Calcutta (archive.org).
“The cantonment road was near, also many others intersecting the sandy plain all 40 feet wide and one with footpaths fully 20. This led past the bungalows of officers, each in a compound, which made the road very long and dull, and it was very hot too. On Thursday [24th January 1889] we drove to the city about 4 miles off and nearer the sea and discovered the native town and wandered up and down narrow streets full of people intermixed with cows and passed several baths where people were washing themselves outside the buildings.
“We departed at dawn on Friday [25th January 1889] and drove down to the bunder and were off after breakfast, now the only 1st class. Friday night we stopped 3 miles out from Gwadar in Beloochistan, so of course saw nothing, and on Sunday morning, 27th [January 1889] early, found ourselves at Muscat in Arabia.”
Five years on – Karachi revisited: Bound for India a second time
The MM SS ‘Ava’ at Port Said on her way to Aden. The Bents changed to the MM SS ‘La Seyne’ there for Karachi in the winter of 1894 (courtesy: P. Romona).
For 1895, the Bents have decided to make a second attempt to penetrate regions of Yemeni Hadramaut, this time approaching from the south-east, via Muscat again and the coast of modern Oman. Their first trek into the Wadi Hadramaut, in 1894, was only partially successful, and on their return they soon made plans to try again. Mabel’s previous Chronicle had ended in an upbeat tone with ‘and if we possibly can we’ll go back’. In any event they only had a few months (and, as said before, they normally took a break in mid-summer to visit family and friends in England and Ireland) to seek backing and make all the necessary preparations, including informing the ‘media’. Ultimately Theodore was ready to issue a ‘press release’ to The Times (31 October 1894): “Mr. Theodore Bent informs Reuter’s Agency that he and Mrs. Bent are about to start another scientific expedition to Southern Arabia. Leaving Marseilles by Messageries steamer on November 12, they will proceed to Kurrachee, whence they will tranship to Muscat.”
For a first-hand account, we have an extract from Mabel’s classic book on their Arabian adventures – Southern Arabia (1900) – in which she explains (p. 228 ff):
“My husband again, to our great satisfaction, had Imam Sharif, Khan Bahadur [expedition cartographer of note on their last trip], placed at his disposal; and, as the longest way round was the quickest and best, we determined to make our final preparations in India, and meet him and his men at Karachi.”
The MM SS “La Seyne”. The Bents sailed on her to Karachi in the winter of 1894/5 (courtesy: P. Romona).
But let’s at this point switch back to Mabel’s diaries, and her entry for: “Saturday 15th December, 1894. The Residency, Muscat. As it is now nearly a fortnight since I have seen a white woman, I think it time to start my writing. We left England [Friday] Nov. 9th [1894] and after 2 nights at Boulogne embarked at Marseilles on [Monday] the 12th [November 1894] on board the M.M.S.S. ‘Ava’. We had a good passage and warm, seeing Etna smoking on the way, and about 2 days after had a great white squall; I daresay in connection with the earthquakes. We transshipped at Aden to ‘La Seyne’, Theodore going ashore to see about the camp furniture left there 7 months ago.
Government House, where the Bents stayed in Karachi in November 1894. From “Kurrachee Past, Present And Future” by Alexander F Baillie, p. 146, 1890, Calcutta (archive.org).
“We reached Kurrachee on the morning of [Thursday] the 29th [November 1894] and a letter came on board from Mr. James, the Commissioner, asking us to stay at Government House, saying he was going to the Durbar at Lahore, but his sister, Mrs. Pottinger, would entertain us – and so she did, most kindly. She is so pretty and charming, I do not know which of us was most in love with her…
The Sind Club and Frere Hall, Karachi. From “Kurrachee Past, Present And Future” by Alexander F. Baillie, p. 148, 1890, Calcutta (archive.org).
“We remained at Kurrachee till Monday night after dinner. We drove out every evening and one morning went to the bazaars. I bought a lot of toe rings of various shapes, silver with blue and green enamel. They were weighed against rupees and 2 annas added to each rupee. One day we went to call on 2 brides and bridegrooms, Mr. and Mrs. McIver Campbell and Mr. and Mrs. Thornton. The ladies, Miss Grimes and Miss Moody, had come out to our steamer, been married that day, and were passing their honeymoon together at Reynold’s Hotel, amid the pity of all beholders. We embarked [Monday 3rd/Tuesday 4th December 1894] on the B.I.S.N.S.S. Chanda with a little plum pudding Mrs. Pottinger had had made and mixed and stirred by herself and us, and Mr. Ireland, a young invalid officer who was being taken care of at Government House, and her young nephew, Mr. A. James. We were 3 days on the Chanda, a clean little ship with a very clever nice Captain Whitehead, and on Thursday morning [6th December 1894] we reached Muscat…”
A third and final return to India
Theodore’s own watercolour sketch of Muscat from his paper ‘Exploration of the Frankincense Country, Southern Arabia’. The Geographical Journal, 1895, Vol. 6 (2) (Aug), 109-33.
Alas, this expedition along the Oman coast also turns out to be less than successful – although the couple made some remarkable discoveries. The fastness that was the ‘Wadi Hadhramout’ again resisted the Bents’ advances and the party found itself stranded at Sheher, on Yemen’s south coast, in late January 1895, in vain hoping to strike northwards into the Wadi area, or, failing that, to return to Muscat to explore further there.
Mabel’s expedition Chronicle of around this date is haphazard and, understandably, rather depressed. Something happens, and, as in nowhere else in her twenty years of diary-keeping, the detailed notes of the couple’s travels disappear. We get a few lines from the Yemeni south coast before moving with her on board the Imperator for Mumbai:
“[About Wednesday, 30th January 1895, Sheher] … The next 2 days there were great negotiations and plannings as to our future course. One plan was to go hence to Inat in the Wadi Hadhramout, down to Kabre Hud and Bir Borhut and thence to the Mosila Wadi; eastward and back by the coast to this place and then try to go westward. But the other is to us preferable; to go along the coast, first up Mosila and into the Hadhramout and then try to go west, without coming here again. Of course there are so many delays of all sorts that we shall be here some days yet. The one pleasure we can enjoy is a quiet walk along the shore covered with pretty shells and birds…
A Bombay street, from ‘A handbook for travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon’ (J. Murray 1911, p.203 archive.org).
“A good long time has elapsed since I wrote and I resume my Chronicle. Sunday, February 17th [1895]. And hardly can I write for the shaking of the very empty Austrian Lloyd S.S. ‘Imperator’ bound for Bombay. After a good deal of illusory delay, the Sultan Hussein declared he could not answer in any way for our safety if we went anywhere and so we at first thought of going to Muscat in a dhow and going to the Jebel Akhdar, as we had intended if it had not been for Imam Sheriff’s illness, but with the wind blowing N.E. it would have taken fully a month. We then must have gone round by India to get home and all our steamer clothes were at Aden. So as soon as we could we hired a dhow and embarked thereupon at about 1 o’clock for Aden…”
Back on dry land, we know the Bents were in Aden again by Wednesday, 13 February 1895. On that date Theodore wrote a ‘press release’ via the Royal Geographical Society, which was published in The Times of 1 March, announcing that ‘The party… went on to Sheher… Last year the people were very friendly to Mr. Bent’s party and promised to take them on a tour into the interior, but the season was too far advanced. To Mr. Bent’s surprise, however they received him and his party very coldly, absolutely refused to let them go outside the town, and told them that for the future no European would be allowed to enter the Hadramaut… Although it is evident Mr. Bent has not been able to carry out what would have been an expedition of the first magnitude, still it would seem that his journey will not be without interesting and novel results. His latest letter is dated from Aden, February 13, and he expects to be home about the middle of April.’
The Austrian Lloyd ‘Imperator’. The Bents travelled on her from Aden to Mumbai in early 1895 (B. Ivancovich, wikipedia).
And they will come home via India; and Mabel’s few lines above are all we have of the Bents’ last trip there. Why did Mabel not keep up her diary? They would have reached Bombay on the Imperator (a lovely ship of 4140 tons, launched in September 1886 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Austrian Lloyd Shipping Company) by the end of February 1895, and we know the two of them were back in London by the end of April.
The Manchester Guardian of 25 April 1895 carried another report: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Bent have returned to London after spending the winter in exploring some of the little known or entirely unknown valleys of Southeastern Arabia. The flying trip which Mr. Bent made to India to see Colonel Holdich, the head of the Indian Survey, as to some unexpected difficulties, presumably of official origin, thrown in the way of the realisation of his plans for visiting the Eastern Hadramaut Valley, was unfortunately unsuccessful, as Colonel Holdich was absent on frontier business…’
Superintendent of Frontier Surveys in British India, Theodore’s friend, Colonel Sir Thomas H. Holdich (wikipedia).
Allowing for a two- or three-week journey back to England, Theodore and Mabel would have remained three or four weeks in India. As we have read above, one mission Theodore had in the country was to try and find his friend the great ‘Superintendent of Frontier Surveys in British India’, Colonel Sir Thomas H. Holdich, intending to elicit his support for one further expedition to the Hadramaut.
But Mabel’s above note, about needing Aden again to collect their personal effects, including ‘steamer clothes’ prior to making for Bombay, leads indirectly to one last bit of classic tourism and sightseeing – the fabled Ellora Caves. It looks, however, as if Mabel never went along; indeed, the only reference we have to the trip comes after Mabel’s death in 1929; prompted by her obituary in the Times, a letter appears in the same newspaper a few days later. This letter, of 6 July 1929, is from Mrs Julia Marie Tate, of 76 Queensborough Terrace, Hyde Park, London, widow of William Jacob Tate, in which she wistfully recalls:
Steamer Point, Aden around 1900.
“… a vivid picture of a moonlit night as clear as day off Aden, watching Arabian ‘sampans’ unloading tents and quantities of camp ‘saman’ [personal effects]. Presently their owners climbed up, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Bent. A few months before [i.e. the winter of 1894/5] we had called at their [London] house in Great Cumberland-place to learn their whereabouts, but the *butler knew nothing, only that they were ‘somewhere in the Indian Ocean.’ This improvised meeting brought about the fulfilment of a cherished desire of theirs when my husband took his old schoolfellow to see the wonder caves of Ellora. This was their last reunion on earth.”
Part of the ‘Carpenter’s Cave’, Buddhist Cave 10 at Ellora, and visited by Theodore Bent in 1895 (wikipedia).
It is remarkably odd that Mabel makes no mention of this trip to the ‘wonder caves’ – was she ill? Or prevented somehow from going? Did it cause such resentment that she refused to chronicle the stay in Mumbai, and the long journey home by sea? Her regret at missing out on this excursion – then as now one of India’s greatest tourist attractions – can be imagined, for she was not easily denied. Also unusual is the fact that Theodore also wrote nothing about the visit to the caves (a trip that would have necessitated several nights away from his wife) – he did have much else on his mind, but perhaps also he had no desire to bring up the matter again and avoid any breakfast-table ill will!
The Ellora Caves for tourists. ‘Thomas Cook: India Burma and Ceylon : information for travellers and residents’ (1898, p. 79) (archive.org)
And his companion? William Jacob Tate (1853-1899) was at Repton School with Theodore in the late 1860s. He joined the Indian Civil Service but had to retire early on account of his health and died just two years after Theodore in December 1899, at the age of 46. Mabel and Mrs Tate perhaps remained in town while Theodore and his old school friend visited the Ellora cave complex of monasteries and temples carved in the basalt cliffs north of Aurangabad (Maharashtra State), some 300 km north-east of Mumbai – “Reached from Nandgaon (G.I.P. Railway) by tonga, holding three passengers… Visitors are advised to take a sufficient supply of provisions and liquors for the trip.’ (Thomas Cook: India Burma and Ceylon : information for travellers and residents (1898, p. 79)
As for Mrs Tate, she can be forgiven her unseen tears in her letter to the Times. A stone in the Kemmel Chateau Military Cemetery Heuvelland, Belgium, is inscribed: ‘Tate, Lieutenant, William Louis, 3rd Bn., Royal Fusiliers. Killed in action 13 March 1915. Age 24. Eldest son of the late William Jacob Tate, I.C.S., and of Mrs. Julia Marie Tate.’ And the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial has this: ‘Tate, Captain, Frederick Herman, Mentioned in Despatches, 10th Bn., King’s Royal Rifle Corps. 11 August 1917. Age 22. Son of Mrs. Tate… the late W.J. Tate.’
The old steamer on her westward bearing leaves Bombay in her wake. No amount of meditation in the Ellora Caves, or anywhere else, will ease such wounds, be it for Tate or Tata: ‘With deep sympathy, from Mrs. Theodore Bent.’
* The ‘butler’ here is Mr. A. Lovett, and it is a pleasure to reference him; how nice it would be to trace his descendants (if any). Sadly, he was to lose his job on Bent’s demise in May 1897. The Morning Post of 13 May prints this notice: “Mrs. Theodore Bent can recommend A. Lovett as Butler: four years’ character; leaving through death. – A.L., 13 Great Cumberland-place, W.”
‘Kalenzia, Isle of Socotra, 1897’. Watercolour (detail; private collection).
“Mr. Theodore Bent, the famous archaeologist is going to explore the island of Sokotra, on the West Coast [sic] of Africa, this winter. Sokotra is said to contain some important ruins, and if Mr. Bent can discover anything as interesting as the buried cities of Mashonaland he will have again achieved fame.” (‘The Morning Leader’ – Tuesday 08 December 1896)
Poor Theodore Bent spent his 45th, and last, birthday (30 March 1897) in hospital in Aden, malaria stricken. Just a few weeks beforehand, however, he and his wife Mabel were happily wandering on camels through the plains and mountains of Socotra – a speck a centimetre west of the Horn of Africa on most maps – looking for archaeological remains and enjoying the fantastical scenery; Mabel took photographs while Theodore sketched in watercolour in his naïve way. How far back did he work at this style? As a Yorkshire Baildon boy? Or at Repton and Wadham? In any event he obviously took pleasure in the art and his illustrations later assisted his studies in the field (reminiscences, maps, plans, inscriptions, etc.); he felt assured enough to have his views published in all his books and, editors permitting, in many of his articles that had to do with the couple’s adventures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, Southern Arabia, Persia…
Heading from Mabel Bent’s Socotran diary 1896/7.
Mabel’s diaries often refer to her husband’s drawing materials and sketches, calling the latter ‘pretty’. Theodore was sketching on his last trip, in 1897, to Socotra and Aden, as his wife records: “[Thursday] February 4th [1897]. The mountains of the Haghier range [Socotra] are most beautifully peaked and needled, and here look red, not being smothered by the smooth, grey lichen. We were, though sorry to quit the mountains, glad to reach the plain, cross a river on stones and mount our camels and reach Suk… We encamped by a lagoon and had a pleasant afternoon and evening walking by the sea, and also choosing places for photography on the morrow and Theodore sketching. We had to keep the tent open at night it was so warm and still.’ [‘Travel Chronicles of Mabel Bent’, Vol. 3, Southern Arabia, 2010, page 303]
Socotra Cucumber Tree (Dendrosicyos socotrana), watercolour by Theodore Bent (1897). [See Derdriu Marriner’s article (March 2024) on this rare tree, which the author has kindly dedicated to the Bents: “with appreciation for their pioneer research via a 15-year expedition to eastern Mediterranean, Africa and Arabia and for the artistry of Theodore’s sketches and Mabel’s photographs.”]Several of Bent’s watercolours of Socotra are illustrated in the couple’s great work ‘Southern Arabia’. His sketch book (17.5 x 25 cm) obviously survived the rigours and maladies of the hard journey and return home from Aden at the end of April 1887. Although Theodore and Mabel were still terribly ill, once out of hospital, and barely fit for travel, they embarked immediately for Marseilles. There Theodore had a relapse and although rushed back to their London home, he died a few days later in early May (1897). His sketch book remained unopened until Mabel felt strong enough psychologically to have the watercolours photographed and prepared as plates for ‘Southern Arabia’, the anthology of their years spent in the region.
‘Kalenzia, Isle of Socotra, 1897’. Watercolour (detail), by Theodore Bent (private collection; see colour version at top of this post).
As for the original watercolours now, who knows? But by a miracle, one has survived in a private collection – it probably never travelled back to Marble Arch with the invalid couple in the spring of 1897: it is a scene of ‘Kalenzia’ (Qalansiyah), a coastal village at the extreme east of Socotra (a Google image of the area is also shown here below); we are looking west, it is sunset, the mountains above the village sombre; in the foreground, among palm trees, are a few simple huts and what looks like a mosque with its minaret. Theodore has signed his name bottom right, with the inscription ‘Kalenzia, I[sle] of Socotra, 1897’.
The DNB of 1901 adds to Bent’s entry that “[his] notebooks and numerous drawings and sketches remain in the possession of Mrs. Bent.” A few of his notebooks are in the Joint Library of the Hellenic and Roman Societies, London, but where are his “numerous drawings and sketches”? Do please let us know if you have any information on Theodore’s unpublished ones!
Let’s be clear, although Theodore made hundreds of them, surviving original watercolours by him are as rare as evidence of the elusive Queen of Sheba he spent his last years looking for. A portfolio of watercolours of Great Zimbabwe and its surroundings is thought to be in Harare… and that’s it, apart from the aforementioned scene of ‘Kalenzia’, a detail of which is appropriately used for Theodore’s last birthday card (heading this post). This mesmeric scene is not reproduced in the Bents’ ‘Southern Arabia’, but it would surely have if Mabel had been in possession of it as she worked assembling her book in London in 1900. As mentioned previously, the chances are the picture never reached Marble Arch with the rest of their travel gear in the early summer of 1897. Did Theodore give or sell it in Aden, or on the long journey home by steamer, through Suez, to Marseilles. Did someone say, ‘That’s nice’, and Theodore present it with a bow – perhaps to Henry Watts Russell de Coëtlogon (1839–1908), with whom the Bents dined in Aden on their last, sad, journey? It surely could not just have been lost (or stolen) before the Bents reached England? The happy coda is that, whatever happened to it since it materialised in Qalansiyah some 120 years ago, it appeared at auction in Germany in 2013, selling for 100 Euros, and is now, presumably, being privately and luckily enjoyed; if by you, please let us know. Happy birthday Theodore.
Modern-day Qalansiyah, Socotra (Google).
This article is dedicated to the UNESCO-Friends of Socotra campaign entitled Connect 2 Socotra (#connect2socotra), promoting scientific research and awareness of the unique natural and cultural heritage of the Socotra UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site and the importance of protecting Socotra Archipelago’s unique species and ecosystems for the future.
Socotra is of universal importance with a biodiversity of rich and distinct flora and fauna, much of which does not occur anywhere else in the world. It also has globally significant populations of land and sea birds, including a number of threatened species and an extremely diverse marine life
In order to raise awareness of the rich and distinct heritage of Socotra, UNESCO is collaborating with the Friends of Socotra in organising a campaign of awareness events and publicity around the world. Using the hashtag #connect2socotra, the purpose of the Connect 2 Socotra Campaign is to connect the world to Socotra, and connect Socotra to the world. Search Google for campaign news and events.
December 2022 – a new discovery: A further unpublished watercolour sketch by Bent made on Sokotra in early 1897, showing two camels and distant mountains, appears in Alice Norton: ‘Mabel Virginia Anna Bent – Explorer’, appearing in Carloviana 2023, the Journal of the Carlow Historical and Archaeological Society (Dec. 2022, pp.117-123).
A review of Bent birthdays based on Mabel Bent’s Chronicles, 1884-1897
The accompanying interactive map below plots these birthdays: Mabel in green, Theodore in blue. (NB: London [13 Great Cumberland Place] stands in for unknown locations in Great Britain; the couple could have been away visiting family and friends in Ireland or England, including at their property ‘Sutton Hall’, outside of Macclesfield.)
There were 28 Bent birthday events (2 x 14) between 1884–1897 (the years covered by Mabel Bent’s diaries). Of these 28, only 5 (18%) were not spent in the field, and only 7 times (25%) does Mabel refer to a birthday in her notebooks directly. In the above Table, column 1 gives the year and ages of the Bents on their birthdays; columns 2 and 3 give their birthday locations. Events in red are when Mabel refers directly to their birthdays. ‘London’ is standing in for unknown locations in Great Britain. If not at their main residence (13 Great Cumberland Place), the couple could have been visiting family and friends in Ireland and England, including at their property Sutton Hall, outside of Macclesfield.
Some recognition, after 137 years, for the skeletal material excavated in 1883/4 on the Cycladic island of Antiparos by Theodore Bent.
“The skull from the Greek tombs at Antiparos placed in my hands for examination by Mr. Bent is that of an adult male of middle age.” [J.G. Garson, M.D., Royal College of Surgeons, in J.T. Bent ‘Notes on Prehistoric Remains in Antiparos’. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. XIV (2) (Nov 1884), 134-41] (NHMUK PA HR 12070, RCS 5.3162, FC 531B. Photo courtesy of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, 2022)
Theodore Bent’s first rung on the archaeologist’s ladder, as it were, is represented by his few weeks in late 1883 and early 1884 excavating some prehistoric graves on Antiparos in the Greek Cyclades (see map below). Bent writes “I was induced to dig at Antiparos, because I was shown extensive graveyards there. Of these, I visited no less than four on the island itself, and heard from natives of the existence of others in parts of the island I did not visit…” (Researches Among the Cyclades, 1884, p.47)
As to how this all came about is revealed in his wife’s ‘Chronicle’:
“… we only found, besides bones, 2 very rough marble symbols of men and women, little flat things and some broken pottery.” Mabel Bent’s diary (18/12/1883 ?) recording their first ‘excavation’ at Krassades, Antiparos (Hellenic Society Archive, London)
“Tuesday [1883, December 18th?]. Rode 1½ hour to the nearest point to Antiparos carrying only our night things and a card of introduction from Mr. Binney for Mr. R. Swan who has a calamine mine on this island. Crossed in about 10 minutes [from Paros]. Found the population all enjoying the feast of St. Nikoloas who replaces Neptune. At one house I was obliged to join in the syrtos holding 2 handkerchiefs. We sent a messenger to Mr. Swan and knowing he would take 3 hours to return, rode to meet him. Met Mr. Swan who more than fulfilled our warmest hopes. He took us to his house, and after resting told us that in making a road he had come upon a lot of graves and found a marble cup, broken etc. So, we manifesting a great wish to dig too, he got men and we opened 4. They were lined and paved with slabs of stone and the people must have been doubled up in them, they were so small; we only found, besides bones, 2 very rough marble symbols of men and women, little flat things and some broken pottery.” [The Travel Chronicles of Mabel Bent, vol 1, Oxford 2006, pp 21-2]
What is thought to be the house of Robert Swan at Krassades, Antiparos. The Bents may well have been based there for their excavations in late 1883, early 1884 (photo = Alan King)
The Scottish engineer Robert Swan (1858-1904), and his brother John, were at that time working for a French mining company and were settled on the western coast of Antiparos around the site known today as Krassades – his house, where the Bents spent the night, having excavated some of the famous Cycladic figurines (which he sold to the British Museum) and the skeletal material, can still be seen. The next day (19th December 1883?) the Bents went back to Paros for Christmas and the New Year, not returning to Antiparos to undertake more excavations until 4 February 1884 (for three weeks). Mabel does not provide much information on this second campaign:
Some of the “little marble figures” recovered by the Bents from the area of Krassades, where the skeletal material was uncovered (in Bent, J.T. 1884. Researches among the Cyclades. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 5, 42-59).
“… As I have been very lazy about my Chronicle, I will only say that there I stayed 3 weeks [February 1884], during which time we did lots of fishing, sometimes with dynamite, which is against the law and very dangerous, but the fishermen here did it… A good deal of grave digging was also done and a good many pots of earth and marble found, also knives of volcanic glass, little marble figures and a little silver one also, very rough, and some personal ornaments of brass and silver…” [The Travel Chronicles of Mabel Bent, vol 1, Oxford 2006, pp 45-6]
Altogether, Theodore Bent records having opened around 40 graves at two of the sites they explored, referring to Krassades as the ‘poorer’ (i.e. earlier):
“And now a few words about the graves themselves. In the first place those on the western slope are very irregular in shape: some oblong, some triangular, some square ; they generally had three slabs to form the sides, the fourth being built up with stones and rubbish. There was always a slab on the top, and sometimes at the bottom of the grave. They were on an average 3 feet long, 2 feet wide, and seldom more than 2 feet deep. In every grave here we found bones, chiefly heaped together in confusion, and most of the graves contained the bones of more bodies than one. In one very small grave we found two skulls, so tightly wedged together between the side slabs that they could not be removed whole.” [Notes on Prehistoric Remains in Antiparos, pp. 137-8]
“The skull from the Greek tombs at Antiparos placed in my hands for examination by Mr. Bent is that of an adult male of middle age.” [‘Notes On An Ancient Grecian Skull Obtained By Mr. Theodore Bent From Antiparos, One Of The Cyclades’, by J.G. Garson, M.D., Royal College of Surgeons, in J.T. Bent ‘Notes on Prehistoric Remains in Antiparos’. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. XIV (2) (Nov 1884), 134-41; Biographical note: ‘J.G. Garson, M.D., F.Z.S., Memb. Anthrop. Inst., Anat. Assist. Royal College of Surgeons, and Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at Charing Cross Medical School’]
And that might have been that for this Early Cycladic individual, but the Bent Archive felt that he deserved more attention, and the Royal College of Surgeons was approached to see if they had any information on the subject. There was good and bad news – Yes, the skull appears in their registers [Register of Accessions or Donations, 1862-1886, Ref: RCS-MUS/3/1/6], but, No, it was probably destroyed in the Blitz, when about a third of their collection was lost. But, their archivist continued, try the Natural History Museum, where some items had been transferred before the war.
Our approach to the Museum revealed that, indeed, the skull was there in South Kensington, and not just a skull, but another skull fragment, a pelvis, and also a considerable assemblage of ribs and assorted long-bones. This was a new discovery. Bent makes no mention of returning with such a large collection – and nor have the bones been catalogued or studied; indeed, without such study there is no way of knowing how many individuals are involved, nor from which site they came. We know that Bent made at least two investigations of burials sites on Antiparos, and Mabel Bent in her diaries also refers to finding bones on Paros and perhaps elsewhere. Without further research it is not possible to say whether all the material is from the significant and early Krassades site.
In the early summer of 2022, the Natural History Museum took the first ever photographs of the skulls and fragments of a pelvis, and have very kindly given their permission for us to reproduce the cranium mentioned by the excavator in his laconic footnote on page 409 of his 1885 monograph – “The skull I presented to the Royal College of Surgeons.” It has not been seen by anyone outside a museum drawer for almost 140 years, and very far from the sunny Cyclades.
Other finds from Krassades in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, possibly dating to the era of the skeletal material recovered by the Bents. (photo= Alan King)
Mabel Bent was to become the expedition photographer on the couple’s subsequent annual journeys to the Levant, Africa and Arabia, but not for the trip to the Cyclades, alas, or we might have been able to see the skull before in some way (it is also rather strange, perhaps, that it seems never to have been drawn for any of Bent’s articles).
In any event, the artefact is respectfully presented here, and it is gratifying to bring this individual from an early Mediterranean culture to a wider audience for the first time (August 2022). Hopefully a project to sort, classify, and catalogue all the Natural History Museum Bent Collection material can be undertaken to see whether further scientific analyses might be appropriate: the last decade or so has seen considerable interest in the prehistoric past of the region (e.g. the work of Colin Renfrew et al. not far away at Keros and Daskalio, off Naxos).
We are delighted to add (January 2024) that the skeletal material recovered by the Bents from Antiparos in the winter of 1883/4 and now in the Natural History Museum, London, has recently been assessed by Laura Ortiz Guerrero in “Osteological analysis of the Early Bronze Age human remains excavated from Antiparos in the 19th century” (Unpublished Master’s Dissertation, University of Sheffield, Department of Archaeology, 2023).
Present whereabouts unknown, but presumably in the former Musée Archéologique De Charleroi, a most interesting group of four vases (two stone, two clay) was removed from Antiparos after 1850 and entered the collection of the industrialist Valère Mabille (1840-1909), who later presented them to the ‘Société paléontologique et archéologique de l’arrondissement judiciaire de Charleroi’. One of the vessels is nearly identical to a jar removed by Bent from the sprawling site at Krassades and sold later to the British Museum (1884,1213.42). It is very possible that the four Charleroi pots are from the site Bent was to explore in 1883/4, and were looted during the French mining operations that were ongoing there before the Bents arrived. One of the pots, it seems, contained some skeletal material, possibly not yet analysed; the bones Bent brought back from the Krassades site are currently being studied. Such examples from Antiparos are very rare. The echo of Mabel in Mabille does not go unheard. (Ch. Delvoye, Quatre vases préhelléniques du musée archéologique de Charleroi, L’Antiquité Classique, 1947, 47-58)
For those interested in a select bibliography on the subject, we can list for you, inter alia:
The Bents visited the Dodecanese in the E. Med in early 1885, calling at Rhodes, Nisyros, Tilos, and Karpathos (map: Glyn Griffiths).
In early 1885, Theodore and Mabel Bent were travelling in the islands we now refer to as the Dodecanese (in the Eastern Mediterranean), but were then in Turkish hands. Their main interest was Karpathos, but before sailing there the couple spent time on Rhodes, Nisyros, and Tilos, looking for items of interest to them – antiquities, textiles, ceramics – as well as making notes of traditions, folklore, and customs, and taking photographs and sketching.
The red overdress bought by the Bents on Nisyros in 1885 and now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (T.166-1931, (c)Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
Avid collectors (and dealers) of textiles, the Bents acquired a number of articles of clothing and domestic embroideries on their journey around the Dodecanese in the first quarter of 1885. It was a competitive field, as illustrated by an (unpleasant) note by Theodore regarding a fellow passenger, the following year, to the nearby island of Asytpalaia: “Another passenger, too, turned up, whom we soon learnt to be a little red-haired Jew from a bazaar in Constantinople, who took this opportunity to make a descent on Astypalaea for embroideries and plates; he was our bête noire in the island: whenever we tried to effect a bargain he was always to be seen hovering around, ready to offer more if our price was low, and to chuckle if we gave too much.” (‘Astypalæa’. The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 262 (Mar), 253-65) (NB Mabel never refers to this merchant in her diary and Theodore may well have made it up to pander to the prejudices of the day.)
“We have bought 5 of these underdresses, 1 pair of sleeves, a pillow cover, and a bed valance for £3.15.0.” An extract from Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicle’ of February 1885 (The Hellenic Society, London).
The Bents explored Nisyros from 21–24 February 1885, and seem to have bought there eight or nine garments/textiles, as Mabel notes in her diary for 23 February: “The women here wear a very pretty dress, and now we know why ‘Turkey red’ is called Turkey red, i.e. because all the women in this Turkish island wear an open sleeveless gown of it with a very full skirt a good deal shorter than the thick cotton shirt with handsome silk embroidery round the tail, 1½ yards round. The sleeves are splendidly embroidered. We have bought 5 of these underdresses, 1 pair of sleeves, a pillow cover, and a bed valance for £3.15.0.” (The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 1, 2006, Oxford, p.73.)
The sterling sum Mabel mentions (taking £1 in 1885 for £150 today) equates to nearly £600. In 1886 Theodore offered three dresses acquired from Karpathos (visited in the same season as Nisyros) to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London for £15 (£2250).
The cushion cover/pillowcase (detail) bought by the Bents on Nisyros in 1885 and now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (T.149-1930, (c)Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
Two of the Nisyros items are today in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – a red overdress (T.166-1931) and a cushion cover/pillowcase (T.149-1930). These were sold to the famous London retailers Liberty & Co. after Mabel’s death (1929), or shortly before, by her nieces (who were her beneficiaries). Liberty’s then donated them to the V&A in the early 1930s.
‘Sleeves’/bodice from Tilos, perhaps similar to those bought by the Bents on Nisyros, no distance north of Tilos, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (CIRC.628-1928, (c)Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
As for the other items Mabel refers to (‘underdresses’, the ‘sleeves’, ‘bed valence’), we can only guess as to which collections they might now be in. A search of the V&A’s online collections reveals several unprovenanced items, including bed valences, and it is possible that some of the Bent textiles were bought and then donated to museums around the world. For instance, the ‘sleeves’ (bodice?) Mabel Bent refers to could easily resemble those illustrated by V&A item CIRC.628-1928, said to have come from Tilos, the next island south from Nisyros, and donated by Professor and Mrs Percy Newberry, whom we know were in contact with Mabel Bent. Did she sell to them perhaps? All pure conjecture of course.
A ‘sindhoni’/bed valence (detail) from Nisyros now in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Such items were treasured family possessions and executed in many sizes and designs. The one the Bents purchased has not been traced so far (T.732-1950, (c)Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
At the end of 1885, the Bents gave a lecture to the Anthropological Institute, London, entitled ‘On Insular Greek Customs’, and Mabel Bent curated a small exhibition of her embroideries for it, including the Nisyros valence she referred to above: “A sindhoni of Niseros worked in brown, light yellow, and blue”. Another exhibit featured the red overdress also mentioned and illustrated above: “A figure dressed as a woman of Niseros, in a short narrow dress of white cotton, embroidered round the tail and round the square neck, and with wide sleeves, embroidered in stripes of various coloured silks, and with silver embroidery on the shoulders; over this a very wide dress of turkey-red, half a yard shorter, and sleeveless. A black kerchief across the forehead, and a yellow one over that, hiding the mouth.” (J.T. Bent, ‘Insular Greek Customs’. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 15 (1886), pp. 391-403. [With an Appendix by ‘Mrs. Bent’, p. 401-3])
Mabel Bent appears (third) in the list of lenders to the Burlington 1914 exhibition (‘Catalogue of a collection of old embroideries of the Greek islands and Turkey by Burlington Fine Arts Club’, London, 1914).
Mabel exhibited three of her Nisyros ‘underdresses’ (as well as several other possessions) at an event hosted in 1914 by the Burlington Fine Arts Club (BFAC Catalogue Nos. 44, 66, 83), Exhibit No. 44 included her Nisyros red overdress, the catalogue entry of which begins: “Overskirt of red Turkey twill and Frock embroidered in cross-stitch in coloured silks, of which black is dominant, on linen.” (Catalogue of a collection of old embroideries of the Greek islands and Turkey by Burlington Fine Arts Club (eds A.J.B. Wace et al.), London, 1914, p. 12)
Other items acquired by the Bents on their tours of the Dodecanese and now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, include a ‘stomacher‘ from Astypalaia and dresses from Karpathos.
As remote as you like, for her 37th birthday in 1884, Mabel Bent finds herself on the Greek Cycladic island of Sikinos, a dot squashed between Folegandros and Ios, a leap northwest of Santorini. She and her husband, Theodore Bent, no less inquisitive than acquisitive, were hopping around the islands looking for material for a book which was to appear the following year – his celebrated guide The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. [See below for a summary of Bent birthdays in foreign lands.]
The couple arrived on Sikinos from Ios, a little to the east, on 27 January 1884 and were put up in the house of the demarch, presumably within the medieval, walled chora. They were well looked after, as Mabel notes in her diary:
“Few remains in Greece are more perfect than this temple of Apollo …” Episkopi, Sikinos, before the recent restoration works (Wikipedia).
“[The Sikinos demarch] received us very hospitably. We have a real bedroom and washing table and all. We were soon at dinner and many people came in to see us. When we came out of our bedrooms yesterday morning, 28th, my birthday, we had a tray with a coffee pot and sheep milk and some very hard bread with sesame, all at different times, and very soon after eggs and wine, and then set off with a good many men on mules and foot to the Church of Episkopi, once the temple of Apollo Pythios, about 1½ hour off; of course a steep and rocky way. One could quite well see what it had been in spite of the Christian alterations.” (The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J.T. Bent, Vol. 1, Oxford, 2006, p.41)
Theodore gives this small but imposing (and important) monument ten out of ten. Its designation as a temple to Apollo comes from an inscription identified by Ludwig Ross in the 1840s, but it is more securely considered a mausoleum from Roman times, subsequently rebuilt in the 3rd century AD as a Byzantine Church. Read about it all in a remarkable article, fully illustrated, at Diocese of Sikinos: A unique monument is dedicated to the public today(accessed 19/01/2023).
Very fortunately, the monument escaped the spades of the Bents. Over the last few years it has been re-excavated and restored by the Ephorate of Antiquities (EFA) of the Cyclades, who were awarded the Europa Nostra Award for their work in 2022. The great find was the high-status tomb of a woman apparently named Neiko; Theodore stood just a few metres above her, and she eluded his attentions (unlike the less lucky Karpathos Lady).
Map of the Cyclades from Bent’s 1885 travelogue, showing Sikinos (archive.org)
Here are his words: “Few remains in Greece are more perfect than this temple of Apollo at Sikinos. Somehow it has escaped observation, and it has been too high above the sea to make it of any use for building material; hence it escaped during the earlier years of Vandalism; and then when it was turned into a place of Christian worship a certain amount of respect was secured for it, which other ruins did not obtain until later years…” (The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks, 1885, London, p.176)
Bent also mentions that they met up with the former mayor, Iakovos Kortesis (Theodore names him Kortes) : “An old man, the former demarch, came in shortly after we were up, and begged for the privilege of taking us about the town. In many respects he seemed a man more respected and looked up to than our jocular host; for we were told that if his age and infirmities had not interfered with the fulfilment of his duties he would still have been in office. Wrapped in a shawl, and stick in hand, he seemed to despise the cold, and trudged on at a good pace to show us his garden. Kortes was the name of the old man, and after showing us his garden he conducted us to his house, a large cold place, without any glass in the windows, just over the town gateway…” (The Cyclades, p.178) There is a splendid Sikinos website with contemporary photographs and references to Bent, and see these other (slightly later) photos of the exterior of the house the Bents visited, and a ‘Sikinos gate‘.
Later in 1885, Bent wrote a bizarre article linked to Sikinos entitled “A Romance of a Greek Statue” (possibly fictitious), on which there is a comment in a Revicto(06/01/2022).
2022
By the way, Mabel was born (see ‘My Baby Blue Eyes‘) in her grandfather’s stately home at Beauparc, Co. Meath, Ireland, a very long way from Sikinos!
A review of Bent birthdays based on Mabel Bent’s Chronicles, 1884-1897
The accompanying interactive map below plots these birthdays: Mabel in green, Theodore in blue. (NB: London [13 Great Cumberland Place] stands in for unknown locations in Great Britain; the couple could have been away visiting family and friends in Ireland or England, including at their property ‘Sutton Hall’, outside of Macclesfield.)
There were 28 Bent birthday events (2 x 14) between 1884–1897 (the years covered by Mabel Bent’s diaries). Of these 28, only 5 (18%) were not spent in the field, and only 7 times (25%) does Mabel refer to a birthday in her notebooks directly. In the above Table, column 1 gives the year and ages of the Bents on their birthdays; columns 2 and 3 give their birthday locations. Events in red are when Mabel refers directly to their birthdays. ‘London’ is standing in for unknown locations in Great Britain. If not at their main residence (13 Great Cumberland Place), the couple could have been visiting family and friends in Ireland and England, including at their property Sutton Hall, outside of Macclesfield.
Stomacher from Astypalaia acquired by the Bents in 1886 (T.150-1930, (c)Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
“A sort of bib is worn in front, 5 or 6 inches wide, and down to the waist, embroidered and spangled and sometimes covered with gilt coins and a bit of white calico sewn to the end, which looks as if meant to tuck in but is not.” (Extract from Mabel Bent’s Greek Chronicles, 2006, Archaeopress, Oxford, pp.155-6)
For ten years at the end of the 19th century British explorers Theodore and Mabel Bent travelled around Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean, always on the lookout for fabrics and costumes to bring back to London (either for their own collection or to sell on).
The couple were on Astypalaia (the Greek Dodecanese) in March 1886 and bought one of these stomachers (also plastron) that Mabel Bent is describing; it remained in her private collection until the end of her life, when her nieces sold it to the famous retailer Liberty & Co., who gave it to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 1930 (inv. no. T.150-1930). It is not on display.
Detail from Theodore Bent’s 1885 map of the Eastern Mediterranean, showing the northern Dodecanese, including Astypalaia.
“The women here wear a beautiful dress. Their heads have a long yellow scarf wound round and hanging in loops below the waist, behind and in front, over a little cap covered with beads and spangles and very large earrings of silver; a shirt with embroidery round the tail and very large sleeves like those of Nisiros. These they tie up to their shoulders when at work. Their dress is made of a fine cherry-coloured cloth; a full skirt, echoing the embroidery of the skirt, down the front is let in about half a yard of blue cotton. Round the tail of the skirt is turned up about 8 inches of course white flannel and above that about 8 inches of the blue, so really there is not so very much red. The jacket is of the same red, square backed to the waist, where it branches out to 2 points which are left open and above the slit 3 big silver buttons all tight together. A sort of bib is worn in front, 5 or 6 inches wide, and down to the waist, embroidered and spangled and sometimes covered with gilt coins and a bit of white calico sewn to the end, which looks as if meant to tuck in but is not.
“Her head was covered with a sort of mitre of gold and seed pearls…” Wedding ensemble, Astypalaia (Athens Folk Art Museum).
“I photographed a bride. Her head was covered with a sort of mitre of gold and seed pearls and gauze scarf; dress velvet, silk shirt, jacket fringed with immense silver buttons and big blobs of glass which looked crystal, and on the back there was a quantity of silver. 3 pairs of silver gilt and pearl earrings larger than bracelets. She had 2 holes in her ears. I took 6 photographs.” (Extract from Mabel Bent’s Greek Chronicles, 2006, Archaeopress, Oxford, pp.155-6)
Incidentally, we have here a good example above of how Theodore relied on Mabel’s notebooks (her ‘Chronicles’) for his own writings. Here is an extract from his 1887 article on Astypalaia: “In front a sort of bib is worn down to the waist, embroidered and bespangled, and sometimes covered with gold coins. At the end of this is sewn a bit of white calico, which looks as if it was intended to tuck in, but it never is.” (Theodore Bent, 1887, ‘Astypalæa’. The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 262 (Mar), 253-65)
The photographs Mabel mentions have not been traced, but her stomacher/plastron was to feature in the Burlington exhibition of Greek/Turkish embroideries in London in 1914 (item 81, pp.19-20 in the catalogue), where it is described thus: “There is no embroidery round the neck or down the V [of the dress], but the opening is covered by a separate garment. This is an oblong plastron embroidered in silk and wool on linen with a pattern of pairs of leaves. At the top is a border of beads and gold thread, and the whole surface is covered with sequins of coloured tin.”
Mabel’s collection is now dispersed, but perhaps the star exhibits are back in Athens – some iconic dresses from Karpathos – in the Benaki Museum. The V&A in London has a representative selection of the embroideries and there are also a few other items in the Harris Museum, Preston, UK.
“What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands” (photo: Bent Archive, Plakias, Crete, May 2022)
Mabel’s family, the Hall-Dares of Newtownbarry, were in the first wave of Co. Wexford gentry to adopt the horseless carriage – although in all probability not a Merc, the first of which rolled off the production lines as late as 1926 apparently.
This vehicle, illustrated above, is now resignedly, like an old grey, seeing out its retirement in a public carpark in Plakias, south-western Crete, a hundred metres or so from the shores of the Libyan Sea. As a marque of respect, the researchers of the Bent Archive, recently in the area (May 2022), resorted to Mabel Bent’s Chronicle of April 1885 to confirm that the nearest the Bents got to Plakias (a huddle of fishermen’s huts at the time) was from some way out to sea, heading west for Kythera on the steamer Roumelifrom Karpathos.
The ‘Roúmeli’, oft a transporter of the Bents, and once unkindly referred to by Mabel as ‘a dirty little ship’ (copyright unknown).
In fact, in their twenty years of inseparable travelling, Theodore and Mabel only landed together once on Crete, then in the hands of the Turks, storm-sheltering at Kaloi Limenes/Kali Limenes, further to the east of Plakias, after their protracted investigations in the Dodecanese (early months, 1885). The haven, of course, has always aided those in peril on the sea, as it did Saint Paul, as the legend has it. Once the weather cleared, the Roumeli steamed on west, rounding Crete and Antikythera, before reaching Kythera town.
The route of the ‘Roúmeli’, showing Kali Limenes on south Crete. Plakias is further to the west, south of Rethymnon (Google Maps).
It is unclear why Crete, this major island, never attracted Theodore’s spade, but it probably had something to do with his notoriety; the era of freelancing excavators was coming to an end in Greece and Turkey, and Bent was soon to make an enemy of the implacable Turkish administrator of antiquities, Osman Hamdi Bey. The site of Knossos had been discovered in 1878 (the year after the Bents’ wedding) by Minos Kalokairinos, although it was not until 1900 that Arthur Evans began to extensively clear it. (For a glimpse of Cretan archaeological machinations in 1885, see, e.g., Frothingham 1888. Theodore did very well to steer clear, and, from 1886 eastwards to the Turkish coast. Within a few years, even here became too difficult for the Bents to explore at will, and they were soon off to Africa and Arabia, where they could more freely investigate.)
But, for the moment, back to Crete. Here, then, are the relevant extracts from Mabel’s notebook of their stay of a few hours on the island, at Kaloi Limenes, some fifty years before the great John Pendlebury ran across the hills above the site, as oblivious of his fate as Theodore was of his:
Extract from Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicle’ of April 1885, at Kaloi Limenes, Crete (The Archive of the Hellenic Society, London/Creative Commons: Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0).
“Tuesday April 22nd [actually 21st, 1885]. After this we turned S.W. and sailed under Crete. We had a fearful night of storm, pitching, rolling, catching ‘B flats’ [fleas/bedbugs] and fears of falling on the floor. Added to which I am so spoiled by my hammock that I found the bed dreadfully hard. Much splashing took place and water flew over the ship, so about 10 o’clock, when we got close to ‘a certain island called Clauda’ [Acts 27:16. The Saint shelters here while travelling, as a prisoner, by ship to Rome. The ancient town of Lasea was nearby], we had to turn S. then E. again and take refuge here – a very sheltered place. We went ashore with the water barrels. There is a beach and some bushes and a pretty stream in which many clothes were washed by those who subsequently landed, and all the hands and faces washed, so no doubt we came back a cleaner party than we went…
Kaloi Limenes, 1865, from T. Spratt’s, ‘Travels and Researches in Crete’ (Spratt was among those who proposed Bent’s Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries in August 1885). The Bents would have found no changes to this delightful spot when they landed in 1885. The ancient site of Lasea is in the foreground (wikipedia).
“The annoyance at being turned back was quite overborne by the interest of coming to Kalé Liminas, and it was a great satisfaction to think that St. Paul must have drunk and washed in that very stream, and being stormstayed too was rather nice. The city of Lasea, which was nigh unto the Fair Havens, has disappeared but the place is the same…
“Wednesday, April [22nd, 1885]. We started at 8 in the evening and after a good deal of tossing got into calmer regions, but still were ‘under Crete’ in the morning [passing the huts of Plakias to starboard]. We had a lovely day. About 10 we passed Cerigotto, or as they call it Ante Kythera, and about 12 reached Kythera, or Cerigo, and found ourselves in a very pretty little double bay with a rocky promontory in the middle and a sandy shore.”
A postscript is that the widowed Mabel did return to Crete over the winter of 1901/02, but we don’t know what she did or where she stayed there. “Mrs. Theodore Bent, who spent the winter in Crete, is now at her house in Great Cumberland Place, London.” (Lady of the House, Thursday, 15 May 1902)
Mabel Bent’s notebooks in the library of the Hellenic Society, London (the Bent Archive).
The recent scans by London’s Hellenic Society (2021/2) of Mabel Bent’s ‘Chronicles’ (written between 1883-1897) have provided a wonderful opportunity for researchers to see the diaries of this remarkable traveller first-hand and explore their contexts. Her husband, Theodore Bent (1852-1897), relied on them extensively when writing up the results of the couple’s expeditions for his talks, articles, and monographs.
Bent’s map of the Cyclades from the first edition of his 1885 book (archive.org).
The work that helped launch Theodore’s reputation, and see him starting to think of himself as an ‘archaeologist’, was, of course, his The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks, completed in November 1884 – Bent was an incredibly quick writer – and first published in London in 1885, subsequently running to several editions. It is the first such travel account in English and still today features in any credible bibliography on this much-loved region – some might add, come high summer, too much-loved.
The opening lines of Mabel Bent’s first ‘Chronicle’, introducing us to the Cyclades and dedicated to her sisters and aunts (The Hellenic Society, Creative Commons: Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0).
Mabel’s first ‘Chronicle’ covers the Bents’ tour of the Cyclades over the winter of 1883/4 and there is a litany of evidence of her diary entries appearing almost verbatim in Theodore’s text.
Theodore and Mabel Bent (the Bent Archive).
It should just be added that the couple had made an earlier trip to some of the Cycladic islands in the spring of 1883, and Theodore would have used his own (now lost) notebooks to add certain passages to his book, e.g. his chapter on Amorgos, an island not visited by the pair together in 1884, when Theodore made a second visit sans spouse. It will immediately be seen that Theodore has not assembled The Cyclades chronologically, for that you will need to follow Mabel’s diary. The couple hopped around rather, depending on the weather, steamer sailings, and other factors, which explains why some islands get more than one mention in her notes.
An extract from Mabel Bent’s ‘Cyclades’ notebook, 1883/4 (The Hellenic Society, Creative Commons: Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0).
Because of the popularity and importance of it, for example the couple’s excavations on Antiparos helped define what is identified today as the prehistoric ‘Cycladic Culture’, Mabel’s diary covering these islands (that encircle Delos, and hence the name), in its freely available, digital format, will from now on be referenced and footnoted copiously. The Hellenic Society’s version is in pdf format and provided below is an index to the main islands and a concordance with the chapters in the first edition of Bent’s The Cyclades, as appearing in the online version of that godsend, the Internet Archive. The relevant page numbers are shown, i.e. for the Bents’ account of Anafi, see page 49ff in the Hellenic Society’s scan of Mabel’s notebook, and page 86ff in Theodore’s The Cyclades.
Please note: the Hellenic Society pdf is large and may well take several minutes to load, once open you can enter the page number to take you to the island you want. In Theodore’s column, clicking on the page number will take you to the island in his book! Happy travels! Καλό ταξίδι!
Part of the Bent Collection of diaries and notebooks in the archive of the Hellenic Society, London.
In the late 1920s, Mabel Bent’s niece, Violet Ethel ffolliott (1882-1932) transferred the care of her elderly aunt’s travel diaries, as well as some notebooks of her husband’s, Theodore Bent (1852-1897), archaeologist-explorer, to the Hellenic Society in London.
‘The Journal of Hellenic Studies’, Vol. 1, 1880 (public domain).
Both Theodore and Mabel had been associated with the Society since the 1880s. The institution had started in 1879, and by 1883 Theodore was a member, indicating his growing interest in archaeology (he read history at Oxford). In 1885 he joined its Council and remained on it until the year of his death (1897). Women members were welcomed and contributed greatly; Mabel became a member in 1885. The Society held three or four meetings a seasons, including a General Meeting in London in the summer (at 22 Albemarle Street). The Bents were rarely in the country in time for the winter and spring meetings but, apart from 1891, when they were in Africa, they would have attended the AGMs. The Society’s journal, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, is available online (with the early years as open access), and from 1883 to 1918 one will find references to either Mr or Mrs Theodore Bent within its pages.
However, this institution, having to do, broadly, with things Greek, might at first glance appear an odd choice as a long-term home for these memoirs of travel and exploration associated with remote corners far away from the Eastern Mediterranean; only about half the couple’s twenty years of adventures were primarily dedicated to Greece and Turkey, the other portion, more often than not, found them dusty and deep in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
The three boxes containing the Bent Collection of diaries and notebooks in the archive of the Hellenic Society, London.
And after all, Theodore was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, whose orbit was the whole world, and the latter often funded and supported Bent’s expeditions; in return, he wrote and lectured for them constantly until his early death. So why not leave the Bent notebook collection to the RGS Mabel? A possible answer might be linked to the infamous scandal involving women RGS Fellows in the early 1890s. Mabel was on the list for the second allocation of Fellowships to noteworthy women travellers just at the time the RGS Committee voted against the idea, and women were not readmitted until some twenty years later. Proud Mrs Theodore Bent might well have remembered this obvious slight and opted to lodge her travelogues in the archives of the sociable and patrician Hellenic Society instead.
Whatever the reason, the Bent Collection has remained in three stout boxes in a secure library room in Senate House, London, ever since, available for private research on request (although Mabel’s ‘Chronicles’, as she called them, have since been transcribed and published by Archaeopress, Oxford, in three volumes).
However, advances in scanning techniques, and associated software, not to mention generous support, very appropriately, from the AG Leventis Foundation in this case, now mean that the Bent notebooks can be reproduced digitally, facsimile, ink blots, doodles and all, without risk to the original delicate material.
To quote the specialist involved: “For the vast majority of the time I am using a Bookeye 4 Kiosk book scanner to capture the image data and BCS-2 imaging software to process and format the images once they have been transferred from the scanner… When digitising a volume each page is saved and formatted as a single 600DPI TIFF file, all these files are then collated and converted into a single, readable book format PDF.”
And, most importantly of all, they are available, open-access free, to anyone, anywhere in the world, with an interest in 19th-century travel into those regions that attracted Theodore and Mabel Bent – from Aksum to Zimbabwe.
Accordingly, these notebooks have now been scanned and a digital catalogue produced. All Theodore’s notebooks in the archive have been finished, and all Mabel’s too – n.b. her 1896/7 volume covering Sokotra and Aden, the setting for the couple’s final journey together, was scanned last and is available here. (It should be noted here too that the diaries covering the Bents’ expedition to Ethiopia in 1893 were apparently never given to the Hellenic Society for some reason, and, for now, assumed lost – always the hardest word for a traveller to utter.)
Mabel’s Chronicle cover for 1885 (The Hellenic Society, London).
So, what follows will take you to some very faraway places indeed – you only have to click to be transported (our pages and maps on the Bents’ explorations provide useful background information):
[Mabel used the term ‘Sporades’ for this diary, but the archipelago the couple travelled through in early 1885 is better known today as the Dodecanese. Their great acquisition on this trip was the unique and controversial ‘Karpathos Lady‘, held in the British Museum. The Bents never explored in any depth the group the guidebooks call the Sporades now.]
Mabel Bent died at her London townhouse, 13 Great Cumberland Place, on 5 July 1929 at the age of 82. Her Times obituary (6 July 1929) includes that, “as an experienced photographer and accurate observer, she was of enormous assistance to her husband and famous for the explorations in distant lands which she undertook with [him]. This was at a time when it was much more rare than it is now for a woman to venture forth on such journeys […] During her long widowhood [Theodore died a few weeks after scribbling in his final notebook above, in May 1897] of more than 30 years, Mrs. Bent was well known in literary and scientific London. She was a good talker, with an occasional sharpness of phrase which was much relished by her many friends.”
And would there be any ‘sharpness of phrase’ about seeing her ‘Chronicles’ now scanned and widely available? Did Mabel intend them for publication? Apart from the fact that Theodore relied on his wife’s notebooks for the provision of background details in his monographs, articles and lectures, the chronicler has left one or two clues within her pages.
First page of Mabel Bent’s 1886 ‘Chronicle’. The diarist was fond of an ornate entry (The Hellenic Society, London).
From ‘Room 2’ of the Hôtel de Byzance, Constantinople, in February 1886, Mabel confides, in one of her happiest diaries it seems: “I must begin my Chronicle somewhere if I am to write one at all and as in this matter I am selfish enough to consider myself of the first consideration because I write to remind myself in my old age of pleasant things (or the contrary) I will begin now.” Thus we know, at least, that they were for her to read later in life, and that she intended her aunts, sisters, and nieces to share her adventures. (There are several asides such as, “We have constant patients coming to us and I am sure you would all laugh to hear T’s medical lectures.” And “You must excuse these smudges as I am sitting cross-legged on T’s bed.”).
There is also certainly nothing in her millions of words that could be considered as indiscreet, let alone anything close to libel – or nuptial intimacy for that matter – although there is a little false modesty and coquetry here and there. (Only two or three pages have been removed from the entire series of notebooks.) What is omitted, invisible, becomes visible and striking, however. In all her diaries there is not one reference to the losses of her childhood – her poor mother, her difficult father, and her two dead brothers.
But the most obvious hint that Mabel, at the very least, might be aware of a potential wider interest in her ‘Chronicles’ is the letter still preserved (in the 1885 volume) from her friend, Harry Graham, who shared in some of their travel that year, complimenting her thus: “I carried off your Chronicle… and… I never enjoyed these hours more than when reading it in the train coming down here yesterday – as soon as I have finished it I will send it you back – but 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 2 Chronicles into one and I am sure everyone would buy it.”
Well. Perhaps not everyone. Mabel’s Chronicles are not great travel literature. They are her on-the-spot recollections of long days spent trekking, exploring, digging, dealing with villagers, arguing with minor officials; they are snatches of gossip, snobbishness, likes and dislikes, barking dogs, vicissitudes, poverty and pain; they are delightful souvenirs of music, dancing, colourful costumes and wonderful meals.
“Perhaps it is water”. Fever stricken in the Goddam heights. One of the final pages in Bent’s last notebooks, April 1897 (The Hellenic Society, London).
And how few are the references to limb and life. Just hours from complete malarial collapse, east of Aden, in the alarmingly named heights of ‘Goddam’, Theodore scribbles, in his final notebook, only weeks from his death at 45, “… but feverstricken we were delighted to get away. Apparently this corner of Yemen is particularly feverish. All those who go in from Aden appear to be ill. Perhaps it is [the] water…”
There are certainly passages that reflect her times, too, and which are inappropriate today. Great travel literature? Clearly not. But great travel writing – accounts of wonderful endurance and reflections of courage, attitude, apogee of empire, and spirit – most certainly.
A preference for Fruit Syrup from Sainsbury’s. A jotting in one of Theodore Bent’s last notebooks (The Hellenic Society, London).
It’s also nice to know the couple apparently liked their fruit syrup from J. Sainsbury!
[All original Mabel & Theodore Bent material courtesy of The Hellenic Society/School of Advanced Study, University of London (reproduced under Creative Commons: Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0)]
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