Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/46

 smaller fishes could be traced by running lines; while now and then the movement of some monster caused  the gleaming light to extend many fathoms in every  direction.

After passing the Canary Islands, we cruised for reefs and sunken rocks, reported as being in this quarter, the  squadron sailing in open line. Good lookouts were kept at the mast-heads, and soundings were taken with  three hundred fathoms of line every half-hour, but no  bottom was discovered. There was sufficient swell to cause breakers on any shoal which rose to within fifteen  feet of the surface of the water. We sailed over the locality without perceiving anything that looked like shoal, rocks, or reefs. On the morning of the 7th of October we came to anchor off the town of San Jago, on one of  the Cape Verde Islands. They were discovered in 1460 by the Portuguese, and are still subject to Portugal. They form a group of twenty islands, and are sparsely inhabited. The land is all mountainous, with scarcely enough vegetation to support the people and their cattle. The inhabitants, isolated as they are, with nearly all channels of communication between them and other  countries cut off, are dependent for their chief means of  sustenance upon vessels stopping there for wood and  water. All trade is carried on by barter. From the time of their discovery, these islands have been subject  at intervals to severe drought and famine. The rain of heaven is often withheld for several years in succession,  and at such times all the sources of  fertility are dried up,  and the people and cattle perish for want of water and  food. The most fatal of these famines occurred in the