商品簡介
"The Islands of the Aegean Sea offer plenty of scope for the study of Hellenic archaeology, but they are more particularly rich in the preservation of manners and customs which have survived the lapse of years; and the result of a special study of both these points, made during two winters passed by my wife and myself amongst the islanders in their distant hamlets, and in their towns by the seacoast, I here place before the public..."
Thus, with the promise of a magic-lantern show about to start, J. Theodore Bent prefaces his account of the two tours he made with his wife in the Greek Cycladic islands between 1882 and 1884, the year before the first publication of The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks.
Bent wrote several accounts detailing his travels and discoveries, but none appeals like The Cyclades, a spirited, sometimes quirky, narrative of the ups and downs of simple travel in the Greek Islands (from Andros to Santorini) in the late 19th century. The knowledgeable young scholar is fascinated by the evidence and echoes of past civilizations all around him (and this book still features in the academic bibliographies), but Bent, and his wife (Mabel Hall-Dare), are equally happy to capture for their readers those images familiar to all who enjoy these islands today - the characters, landscapes, the music and dancing, the food and drink, the caiques sailing at dusk... And what remains in our memories is a highly personal lantern-show, as much in sepia as in colour, of the Cyclades over 120 years ago.
