was breaking in foaming masses, and above the rocky shelf the long low line of spires and houses which distinguish the town of Santa Cruz. For a long time the red sunset light was strong enough to make clearly distinguishable the dazzling white frontages, the flat roofs, and unglazed windows, standing out against the perpendicular walls of basaltic rock. Then a dark mist, rising upwards from the sea, like the curtain in the ancient Greek theatre, began to hide the shipping in the port, the quays, and the batteries, till the whole town was lost in the darkness. Higher it spread, obscuring the masses of oleander, and arbutus, and poinsettia in the gardens, and the sepia tints of the rocks above. Then the white lava fissures were lost to the eye, and the Peak alone stood against the darkening sky, its masses of snow bathed in the rich rosy light of the expiring sun. A few minutes more and that too was swallowed up in darkness, and the spell which had enchained the four spectators of the scene was suddenly dissolved. CHAPTER TWO. THE CAPE VERDES--DIONYSIUS'S EAR--UNWELCOME NEWS--FRENCH LEAVE--THE SKIPPER'S WRATH--A SCRAPE. Three or four days had passed, the weather appearing each day more delicious than the last. The _Hooghly_ sped smoothly and rapidly before the wind, and at daybreak on the fifth morning notice was given that the Cape Verde Islands were in sight. The sky, however, grew thick and misty as they neared land; and it was late in the forenoon before they had approached near enough to obtain a clear view of it. "I wonder why they call these islands _Verdes_?" observed Gilbert, as the vessel ran along the coast of one of the largest of the group, which was low and sandy and apparently barren; "there doesn't seem to be much _green_ about them, that I can see." "No, certainly," said Warley; "a green patch here and there is all there is to be seen, so far as the sea-coast is concerned But the interior seems a mass of mountains. There may be plenty of verdure among them, for all we know." "No," said Mr Lavie, who was standing near them. "Their name has nothing to do with forests or grass-fields. There is a mass of weed on the other side of the group, extending for a long distance over the sea, which is something like a green meadow to look at--that's the meaning of the name. There are very few woods on any of the islands, and this one in particular produces hardly anything but salt." "They belong to the Portuguese, don't they?" asked Frank. "Yes; the Portuguese discovered them three centuries and a half ago, and have had possession of them ever since. Portuguese is the only language spoken there, but there are very few whites there, nevertheless." "Why, there must be a lot of inhabitants," remarked Ernest, his eye resting on the villages with which the shores were studded. "Yes, from forty to fifty thousand, I believe. But they are almost all of them half-breeds between the negroes and the Portuguese."