THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 13 



sents a melancholy, but very picturesque appearance. Hav- 

 ing procured a black Padre for a guide, and a Spaniard who 

 had served in the Peninsular war as an interpreter, we vis- 

 ited a collection of buildings, of which an ancient church 

 formed the principal part. It is here the governors and 

 captain-generals of the islands have been buried. Some of 

 the tombstones recorded dates of the sixteenth century.* 

 The heraldic ornaments were the only things in this retired 

 place that reminded us of Europe. The church or chapel 

 formed one side of a quadrangle, in the middle of which a 

 large clump of bananas were growing. On another side 

 was a hospital, containing about a dozen miserable-looking 

 inmates. 



We returned to the Venda to eat our dinners. A consid- 

 erable number of men, women, and children, all as black as 

 jet, collected to watch us. Our companions were extremely 

 merry; and everything we said or did was followed by their 

 hearty laughter. Before leaving the town we visited the 

 cathedral. It does not appear so rich as the smaller church, 

 but boasts of a little organ, which sent forth singularly in- 

 harmonious cries. We presented the black priest with a few 

 shillings, and the Spaniard, patting him on the head, said, 

 with much candour, he thought his colour made no great 

 difference. We then returned, as fast as the ponies would 

 go, to Porto Praya. 



Another day we rode to the village of St. Domingo, situ- 

 ated near the centre of the island. On a small plain which 

 we crossed, a few stunted acacias were growing; their tops 

 had been bent by the steady trade-wind, in a singular man- 

 ner some of them even at right angles to their trunks. The 

 direction of the branches was exactly N. E. by N., and S. W. 

 by S., and these natural vanes must indicate the prevailing 

 direction of the force of the trade-wind. The travelling had 

 made so little impression on the barren soil, that we here 

 missed our track, and took that to Fuentes. This we did 

 not find out till we arrived there; and we were afterwards 

 glad of our mistake. Fuentes is a pretty village, with a small 

 stream; and everything appeared to prosper well, excepting, 



2 The Cape de Verd Islands were discovered in 1449. There was a 

 tombstone of a bishop with the date of 1571; and a crest of a hand and 

 dagger, dated 1497. 



