SAN VINCENT 21 



and could not land to escape the coal dust, which 

 we suffered for two days, so slow were the methods 

 of coaling by barges, and so great the press of 

 ships to be coaled, for the ships' flags of nine nations 

 were flying in the bay. 



The great barren hills of San Vincent remind 

 one much of Aden. Rising abruptly from the 

 sea were great hills with rocky crag and sandy 

 valley, with never a patch of green, and in the 

 foreground an ugly, shadclcss town. Here, unlike 

 the stillness of Aden, were the endless rush of 

 wind and the roar of the sea. 



The Islands of Cape Verde were discovered by 

 Luis de Cadamosto and a Genoese gentleman in 

 the service of Portugal in 1440, whose adventures 

 are to be found in Ramusio's Voyages of the 

 sixteenth century. The first island these sea 

 captains saw they called 13 oa Vista, to show their 

 happiness, and from this island, which was un- 

 inhabited, and where the doves were so tame that 

 the sailors killed them with their hands, they saw 

 two other islands near them, and others farther 

 away to the north and west. After leaving Boa 

 Vista, they sailed south to an island they called 

 San Thiago, as this was the saint day on which 

 it was sighted. At San Thiago they found a river 

 with fresh water and numbers of great turtles, 

 which they declared were very good to eat. 



I am afraid the turtles had all been eaten before 

 the Mossamedes steamed into the harbour of San 

 Thiago and anchored off Praya, which is the 

 Government centre of the whole group of the Cape 

 Verde Islands and the sent of the bishop and 



