Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/63

Rh CAPE VERD ISLANDS It is most probable that the islands were uninhabited at the period of the Portuguese discovery. The new settlers, however, imported negroes from the African coast. The population now amounts to upwards of 70,000, and would have been much greater if famine, caused by droughts and epidemics, had not frequently diminished it. The blacks and mulattoes far outnumber the whites, whose constitution is less suited to the climate. Slavery existed in the islands in full force until the Portuguese Government set free the public slaves in 1854, and modified the condition of those who belonged to private individuals. At that time the number of persons subjected to &quot;involuntary servitude&quot; amounted to about 6000, but at the census of 1860 they had been reduced to 3979. Criminals are transported thither from the mother country, and the punishment is much dreaded. All the towns are poor, dirty places; even the best have few tolerable houses. The people are mild and hospitable, but indolent and uncleanly. In religion they are Roman Catholics. They are extremely ignorant and superstitious, and many heathen notions and practices pre vail among them, brought from the African coast. All the inhabited islands have churches, except S. Luzia. The language is a bastard Portuguese, known to the people of the mother country as lingua creoula. The archipelago forms one of the foreign provinces of Portugal, and is under the command of a governor-in-chief appointed by the Crown. There are two principal judges, one for the windward and another for the leeward group, the former with his residence at S. Nicolao, and the latter at Praia; and each island has a military commandant, a few soldiers, and a number of salaried officials, such as police, magistrates, and custom house directors. There is also an ecclesiastical establishment, with a bishop, dean, and canons. In every island there is a primary Govern ment school conducted by the priests, but the attendance is very small, and the children of the wealthier inhabitants are sent to Lisbon for their educat : on. There are no roads in the islands, and ponies and donkeys are the beasts of burden. Climate and Meteorology. The atmosphere in the vicinity of these islands is generally hazy, especially in the direction of the continent. With occasional exceptions during summer and autumn, the north-east trade is the prevailing wind, blowing most strongly from November to May. The rainy season is during the months of August, September, and October, when there is thunder and a light variable wind from south-east or south-west, which is principally due to the close approach of the inner margin of the north east trade winds, and the in-draught to the neighbouring continent, occasioned by the ratification of the air over the Sahara. The Harmattan, a very dry east wind from th3 African continent, occasionally makes itself felt. The heat of summer is high, ths thermometer ranging from 80 to 90 Fahr. near the sea. The unhealthy season is the period during and following the rains, when vegetation springs up with surprising rapidity, and there is much stagnant water, poisoning the air on ths lower grounds. Remittent fevers are then common. The paople of all the islands are also subject in May to an endemic of a bilious natura called locally levadias, but the cases rarely assume a dangerous form, and recovery is usually attained in three or four days without medical aid. The droughts already spoken of are sometimes general, sometimes partial. On some of the islands rain has occasionally not fallen for three years. The immediate consequence is a failure, of the crops, and this is followed by the death of great numbers from sheer starvation. To add to these horrors, epidemics usually break out afterwards. These disastrous occurrences have greatly obstructed the progress of the colonies. In the general famine of 1730-3, about two- thirds of the population perished, and in that which began in 1831-3, 30,000 persons are supposed to have perished. The years 1855 and 1856 were also marked, by great distress in several of the islands. Productions, Agriculture, dc. The chief occupation of the islanders is cattle-feeding. In some of the islands the making of salt from sea-water employs a considerable number of persons. Orchil is gathered, and the indigo and castor-oil plants, as well as the physic-nut plant (C ureas purgans], are cultivated. The fruit of the last is exported in large quantities to Portugal, where the oil is expressed and consumed in lamps. Maize, sugar-cane, and the manioc plant are also much cultivated, as well as cotton and tobacco to a limited extent. Coffee was intro duced in 1 790, and grows well. Though the soil and climate are fitted to produce many tropical fruits, these receive little attention. Cocoa-nut trees, date-palms, tamarinds, and bananas are seen on most of the islands. Pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and the kalo are generally cultivated. Wood, except in the interior of S. Antao, is entirely want ing, and the people are often reduced to great straits for firing. Quails are found in all the islands; rabbits in BCa Vista, and in San Thiago and Fogo. Goats and asses are reared, and the skins of the former are exported. The neighbouring sea abounds with fish, and the coral animal is at work building up dangerous reefs on submerged rocks. Turtles come from the African coast to lay their eggs on the sandy shores. The exports consist chiefly of coral, salt, physic-nuts, hides, coffee, maize, kidney-beans, sugar-cane spirit, and coarse sugar. The imports are cotton cloths, timber, hardware, crockery, glass, and wine. There is a con siderable intercourse in the way of exchange between the islands one with another. There is a British consul stationed at Porto Grande in S. Vicente, and a vice-consul at Porto Sal Rey in Boa Vista. On none of the islands have any lighthouses as yet been erected. Botany. The flora of these islands has been described by Mr P. Barker Webb in his Spicilegia Gorgonea, a catalogue of all the plants then discovered in the Cape Verd Islands, which forms part of Hooker s Niger Flora, London, 1849; also by Dr J. A. Schmidt in his JBeilraye zur Flora der Cap-Verdischen Inseln, Heidelberg, 1852. From these works it appears that the total number of wild flowering plants amounted to 424, of which 77 are monocotybdonous, and 347 dicotyledonous. Of the former an asparagus and 14 grasses are peculiar; and of the latter, 50 are peculiar. There are besides 14 ferns, two of which are peculiar. The flora is closely related in the main to that of the neighbouringcontinent,and is strongly impressed with a tropical character. Doubtless a large proportion of the plants have been introduced. Geology. The whole archipelago is of volcanic origin, but little is known of its geological structure. Mr Darwin s examination of San Thiago (St Jago) appears to be the fullest that has been made of any of the islands, and that was only partial. Marine shells are found embedded in tufa at Boa Vista (as we learn from Bowdich, who visited that island in 1823), showing an upheaval to some extent. In Fogo is a still active volcano several thousand feet high, which merits the investigation of geologists; and indeed all the islands would, doubtless, repay the student of volcanic phenomena for the time and labour bestowed on their examination. For instance, an inquiry into the circumstances under which calcareous sand is thrown upon the island of Boa Vista, and heaped up by the winds into hills 30 feet high, would probably tend to explain the origin of the superficial layer of similar sand in part of Madeira and Porto Santo.