»77**
A ugust, Verd iflands. _ This ifle is divided into eleven parifhcs, and
themofi populous of thefe contains about four thoufand
houfes, fo that it is but very thinly inhabited.
Porto-Praya Hands on a Seep rock, to which we climbed
by a ferpentine path. Its fortifications are old decayed
walls on the fea fide, and fences, fcarce breafi-high, made
of loofe Hones, towards the land. A ftnal'l church is in-
elofed within thefe wallsj towards the fea ; but, befides it,
there are only a few cottages. A tolerable building, at a
little difiance from the fort, belongs to a company of
merchants at I.ifbon, who have the exclufive right to trade
to all the Ca-pe-Verd ifla-nds, and keep- an agent here for
that purpofe. When we made application to this indolent
Don, by the Governor’s diredlion, to be fupplied with live
cattle, he indeed promifed to furnifh as many as we;
wanted, but we never got more than a fingle lean bullock.
The company perfectly tyrannizes over the inhabitants !
and fells them wretched merchandize at exorbitant prices-.
The natives of St. Jago are few in number, of a middle-
flature,. ugly, and almofi perfectly black, with frizzled-
woolly hair, and thick lips, like the mofi ill-looking kind-
of negroes. The ingenious and very learned Canon Pauw;
at Xanten, in his Recherches Philofophiques furies Américains,
vol. I. p. 13 6 . feems to take it for granted, that-
they are the defeendants of the firfl Portuguefe fettlers,
gradually degenerated through- nine generations (threehundred
hundred years) to their prefent hue, which we found darker S S y ,
than he deferibes it. But whether, according to his and
the Abbé de Manet’s *■ opinion, this change of complexion
was effeéted merely by the heat of the torrid zone, or
whether they have acquired their fable colour by intermarriages
with negroes from the adjacent coafi of Africa,
is a quefiion which I do not venture to decide, though fo
able and judicious an invefiigator of nature as Count
Buffon, aliens, that “ the colours of the human fpecies
depend principally on the climate.’’ See Hifioire Naturelle.,
in i 2mo, vol. VI. p. 260. At prefent there are very few
white people among them, and I believe we did not fee
above five or fix, including the governor, commandant,
and company’s agent. In fome of the iflands, even the
governors and priefis are taken from among the blacks.
The better fort of them wear ragged European doaths,
which they have obtained by barter from fliips that touched
here, previous to the efiablifliment of the monopolizing
company. The refi content themfelves with a few fepa-
ra-te articles of drefs, either a fhirt, or a waifleoat, or a
pair of breeches, or a hat ; and feem to be well pleafed
with their own appearance. The women are ugly, and
wear a long-flip of flriped cotton over the fhoulders, hanging
down to the knees before and behind ; but children
* See his Nouvelle Hiftoire de l’ Afrique Françoife, enrichie de Cartes, &c. a
Paris, 1767, ïam o , vol. II, p, 224. ;
F 2 are