through its connection with the large provinces on the continent belonging to the Portuguese. The little island is covered with houses, most of the buildings being old and quaint. It gets all its supplies from the mainland by boats which move back and forth. It has only eight thousand people upon it, although it is the seat of government for more than a million natives who live across the channel in Africa. The people are mostly Africans and Asiatics, with a few Portuguese. Our vessel stays but a few hours, and then goes on to the Cape of Good Hope.

43. WEST AFRICAN ISLANDS - ST. HELENA

THERE

HERE are four principal groups of islands lying off the west coast of Africa, all opposite the upper half of the continent. The first are the Azores (à-zōrz'), far west of the Strait of Gibraltar; next are the Madeira (ma-dē'ra) Islands to the southward nearer the continent, and still farther south the Canary and Cape Verde archipelagoes.

West of the southern half of Africa are only scattering islets; the chief of which are several belonging to Spain and Portugal in the Gulf of Guinea, and Ascension, St. Helena, and Tristan da Cunha far out from the coast belonging to Great Britain. The chief of the islands in the Gulf of Guinea is Fernando Po, a possession of Spain which lies just opposite the German colony of the Kameruns. It is peopled by negroes. Its commerce is small, its climate is unhealthful, and, as it is far out of our course, we shall not explore it.

Tristan da Cunha, Ascension, and St. Helena are of no commercial importance; nevertheless, we want to stop at the last-mentioned island. Why? Because it was for several years the prison cage of Napoleon Bonaparte, the famous emperor of the French. He had at one time almost conquered Europe, but was defeated and banished to the little island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea. After being there a short time he escaped, and, crossing to France, raised another army and fought the allied forces of Europe at the battle

of Waterloo. Napoleon came near winning in that battle, but he was finally defeated and again taken prisoner. The English, who had most to do with his defeat, decided that they would take no more risks with him so near Europe, so they carried him away south of the Equator to this rocky island thousands of miles from his dear Paris, twelve hundred miles from the coast of Africa, and eight hundred and twenty miles from Ascension, the nearest land. They stationed soldiers on the island to guard him, and although he was given a house and all comforts, he was kept under guard until he died. His remains were first buried on St. Helena, but they were afterward removed to Paris and there placed in a magnificent tomb.

In going north we call at St. Helena, entering the harbor of Jamestown. We climb up Ladder Hill at the back of

the town, and over Rupert Hill to Longwood, where Napoleon lived. We next visit the Valley of the Tomb where he was buried, and then return to our ship. St. Helena is a volcanic island, rough and ragged. It has but few people and is important only as a stopping place for some of the ships which sail between England and the Cape of Good Hope.

44. THE CAPE VERDE AND CANARY

ARCHIPELAGOES

TEAMING northward we touch at the island of Ascen

STEA

sion, noted for its enormous green turtles, some of which weigh as much as a good-sized Jersey cow, and then go on north to the Cape Verde Islands, situated about several hundred miles west of Cape Verde, Africa, from which they are named.

The Cape Verde Islands were discovered and colonized by the Portuguese in the middle of the fifteenth century, and they still belong to them. They are nine or ten in number, but their total area is not much greater than the area of Rhode Island. They are of volcanic origin, most of them being made up of high mountains covered with lava. Some of the islands are all rock; others have patches of rice, corn, and tobacco; cotton and indigo grow wild in the woods.

Our ship stops at St. Vincent, coming to anchor in a little bay half surrounded by volcanic hills. How dry and dreary it is! There is not a blade of grass to be seen, and the brown lava rocks throw back the rays of the sun, making it hotter than ever. St. Vincent has no water, and

its vegetation is so scanty that it would not support a rabbit, much less a man. Still it is the most important of all these islands, and we see why when we notice the many ships in the harbor taking on coal. St. Vincent is a great coaling station on the ocean highway to South Africa. Those sheds on the wharves are filled with coal from Cardiff, Wales, and that town back of them is occupied chiefly in furnishing coal and other supplies to the steamers. There are gangs of negroes at work coaling the ships, and we can hear the great lumps

as they rattle down into the hold of our ship.

We next stop at the Canary Islands, opposite Morocco. The nearest is only sixty-five miles from the mainland, and they lie right in the track of ships going from Europe to South Africa.

Canary Island farmer.

The Canaries are volcanic islands, rising steeply out of the deep waters of the ocean. There are only about seven of them large enough to be considered important and many smaller ones. They were discovered by an Italian from Genoa, the same city from which Columbus came, about two hundred years before the latter discovered America. They afterward became the property of Spain, and are now ruled as one of the provinces of that country. The original inhabitants were Africans, but they have long since disappeared, and now almost all the people are Spaniards.

The islands have but a small area, in all not much more than two thirds that of Porto Rico, and their population is but a few hundred thousand. They are very beautiful, and their climate is so mild that many people from England and other parts of Europe visit them during the winter. One of the most striking features of the Canaries is Mount Teneriffe, whose snow-white peak more than two

One of the most striking features of the Canaries is Mount Tenernie."

miles above the sea is visible long before we reach the islands themselves. It is on Teneriffe, one of the chief islands of the group, that we make our first landing, anchoring at the city of Santa Cruz, the capital of the archipelago.

We seem to be in one of the cities of old Spain. The houses are of brick and stone covered with stucco, painted yellow, blue, and other bright colors. They are close to