LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



Bonavista, Mayo, and St. lago of the Cape Verde group, 

 and on the following day entered the harbor of Porto 

 Praya in the last. The town of Porto Praya, situated at 

 the head of the harbor, presents nothing pleasing even 

 in the distant view, and on visiting it I found it the most 

 degraded place I had ever seen. By far the majority of 

 the population are African. The one-storied hovels in 

 which they live, their disgusting personal appearance, 

 and no less displeasing manners, and little virtue, all 

 make a picture as dark as the color of their faces. And 

 their island does not relieve the dark shades in the 

 picture by compensating beauty or fertility. We visited 

 it in its most favorable condition just after its three 

 months' rain, when the barren plain was covered with 

 some little verdure. During the rest of the year it is 

 like an arid desert; the soil becomes baked and every 

 blade of grass dried up. A few date-palms and cocoanut 

 trees are seen on the island, but these trees, in their 

 scanty foliage, a mere tuft of leaves at the extremity, 

 rather comport with the general aridity of the scene than 

 relieve its monotony. We were only a few hours ashore, 

 and those few hours were almost like minutes. The 

 next morning we set sail for Rio. 



" Our passage from the Cape Verdes here has been a 

 very long one, owing mostly to frequent calms in the 

 equatorial regions and our fruitless search for shoals. 

 We had, however, delightful weather, and as I have 

 found sufficient occupation I have not passed a weari- 

 some day. As I began to tell you on the preceding 

 page, I commenced after leaving these islands the ex- 

 amination of the minute Crustacea species of cyclops 

 mostly which abound in the ocean especially in tropical 

 latitudes, and instead of the few species I expected to 

 find, I obtained, figured, and described seventy-five dis- 

 tinct species, all of which are undoubtedly new, besides 

 twenty species of other Crustacea. The ocean contains 

 yet more new things than either philosophy or science 

 has hitherto dreamed of. I should like to talk longer on 

 this subject, for I have great confidence that much that 

 is new, astonishingly so, will be brought to light." 



Doubling the Cape " has always been a period of risk 

 and usually of danger. Dana in all his experiences on the 



