CAPTAIN TUCKEY'S NARRATIVE. 15 



English shoes; a fourth, a pair of gloves; at the same time 

 pulhng a pair out of his pocket which he assured us were 

 English ; but added, with a sigh, thai they were not his own, 

 having borrowed them from a brother officer for the day. 

 All these gentlemen expressed themselves in very broken 

 English, and indeed there is scarcely a person in the town 

 who does not speak enough of this language for the pur- 

 poses of bartei'ing or begging. 



Having taken leave of the Governor, we walked over the 

 town, which is situated on a kind of platform or table land, 

 nearly perpendicular on all sides, and quite so towards the 

 ba3^ With the exception of half a dozen houses of the chief 

 officers, which are plaistered and white-washed, and of the 

 church, which is without a spire, and externally resembles 

 a barn, this capital of the Cape V^erde islands consists of 

 three rows of hovels, constructed of stones and mud, and 

 thatched with branches of the date tree, and chiefly inha- 

 bited by negroes. 



The fortifications consist of what is here called a fort, but 

 which an engineer would be puzzled to describe; and a line, 

 facing the bay, of sixteen old iron guns, within a half demo- 

 Ushed parapet wall. In a sort of bastion of the fort, the 

 grave of Captain Eveleigh is distinguished by a patch of 

 pavement of round pebbles. This officer, commanding His 



