Cape Verd Islands

Cape Verd Islands (Ilhas do Cabo Verde), a group of Portuguese islands, lying in $14^\{\backslash circ\}\; 45\text{'}\; -\; 17^\{\backslash circ\}\; 30\text{'}\; N.$ lat., and $22^\{\backslash circ\}\; 30\text{'}\; -\; 25^\{\backslash circ\}\; 10\text{'}\; W.$ long., and distant 350 miles west of the cape from which they take their name. They comprise ten inhabited islands, besides several rocky islets, the chief being Santiago, São Antão, Fogo, Brava, and São Nicolão. Total area, 1486 sq. m.; pop. (1834) 55,833; (1885) 110,926. The islands are all very mountainous, and owe their origin to the action of submarine volcanoes. The highest elevation is reached in a volcanic peak, 9157 feet above the sea, on the island of Fogo, which was active so recently as 1847. The climate is unhealthy during the rainy season (August to October), fever and dysentery being the chief scourges; and long droughts have sometimes given rise to great famines, as in 1730-33 and 1831-33, which latter cost 30,500 lives. Though water is deficient, vegetation is luxuriant, yielding African and Southern European products. Sugar, manioc, yams, maize, coffee, tobacco, and indigo are grown; the woods have of late years begun to increase; and cattle-breeding is an important industry. Turtles are abundant in the surrounding seas; amber and archil are found on the coasts; and much salt, though not so much as formerly, is procured from the lagoons on the shores, especially on the island of Sal. The inhabitants, who are mostly negroes and mulattoes, indolent but harmless, speak a bastard Portuguese. They are all Catholics. The revenue for 1894-95 was estimated at £52,000, and the expenditure for the same year at a little more. The islands are a colony under a governor-general, exercising both civil and military authority. Porto Grande, on the island of São Vicente, is an important coaling station for British steamers. The islands were discovered in 1441-56 by the Portuguese, who shortly after colonised them. Slavery was gradually abolished between 1854 and 1878. See Darwin's Volcanic Islands (1844), and Ellis's West African Islands (1885).