to the Cape Verde Islands. 77 



for the walls of some are of glaring white plaster, while 

 others are painted pink, light blue, or yellow, as the case 

 may be. Beyond these houses are clusters of huts belonging 

 to the peasants, simply constructed ; the walls being of 

 stones pieced together and thatched with the dried blades of 

 the sugar-cane. Directly below the plateau, and on each side, 

 there are ravines holding narrow groves of coconut-trees, 

 with small plots of sugar-cane. The surface of the fair green 

 blades is blotched here and there with the dark green of 

 orange-bushes, and splashed in places with the yellow 

 of flowering tamarisks. Looking towai'ds the interior of 

 the island, no luxuriance of vegetation is visible. In 

 the middle distance there rises a series of cone-shaped 

 hills, which become more numerous and mountainous in 

 the far distance, while in the foreground are stretches of 

 table-lands of varying levels, bordering the sea. 



For three days we stayed at the Palace, where the 

 Governor-General showed us much kindness. This stay 

 enabled us to prepare for a start up countiy. While in 

 Praya, I observed a few individuals of Passer jagoensis, 

 which, like the town members of the House-Sparrow, 

 frequented the vicinity of buildings. On my approach 

 they used to get up and fly to the young trees that line the 

 streets and there scrape their beaks after their meals, 

 uttering now and again chirping notes that reminded me 

 very much of those of our Pied Wagtail. ^ Around the 

 outskirts of the town, numbers of Egyptian Vultures, all 

 adult birds, sat hunched up on the boulders that strew the 

 plain, choosing, however, stones as far apart as possible 

 one from another — as if a quarrel had taken place between 

 them, resulting in a mutual coolness. These birds find 

 plenty of food in Praya. Every morning, as regularly as 

 clockwork, they used to troop over the town on their way 

 to the slaughter-house that lies a little back from the quay, 

 in order to gorge themselves on the offal. Then they would 

 return the same way, but a little slower this time, to their 

 old place of meeting beyond the town, where they remained 

 inert throughout the heat of the day. ^ 



