On the afternoon of Saturday (January 14) we sighted in the offing the two paps of Ovedec, or Cabo Verde, the Hesperou Keras, the Hesperium or Arsenarium Promontorium of Pliny, the _trouvaille_ of Diniz Fernandez in 1446. The name is _sub judice_. Some would derive it from the grassy green slope clad with baobabs (_Adansonia digitata_), megatherium-like monsters, topping the precipitous sea-wall which falls upon patches of yellow sand. Others would borrow it from the _Sargasso (baccifera), Golfão_, or Gulf-weed, which here becomes a notable feature. Cape Verde, the Prasum Promontorium of West Africa, is the 'Trafalgar,' the westernmost projection, of the Dark Continent 'fiery yet gloomy;' measuring 17° 3' from the meridian of Greenwich. The coast is exceedingly dangerous; consequently shipwrecks are rare. The owners, as their national wont is, have done their best to make it safe. Two lighthouses to the north of the true Cape mark and define a long shoal with a heavy break, the Almadies rocks, a ledge mostly sunk, but here and there rising above the foam in wicked-looking _diabolitos_ (devilings), or black fangs, of which the largest is die-shaped. A third pharos, also brilliantly whitewashed, crowns the Cape, and by its side is a lower sea-facing building, the sanatorium; finally, there is a light at the mole-end of Dakar. Steaming past the Madeleine rocks, here and there capped with green and whitened by sea-fowl, we sight, through an opening in the curtain of coast, the red citadel and the subject town of Goree, the Gibraltar of western Africa, and the harbour of St. Louis, capital of Senegambia. The island is now the only port, the headquarters having suffered from the sand-bar at the mouth of the Senegal. Here our quondam rivals have made the splendid harbour of Dakar, whose jetties accommodate 180,000 tons of shipping at the same time. This powerful and warlike colony, distant only twelve hours' steaming from Bathurst, has her fleet of steamers for river navigation; her Tirailleurs du Sénégal, and her large force of fighting native troops. Fortified stations defend the course of the river, even above the falls, from the hostile and treacherous Moors. The subject and protected territories exceed Algeria in extent, and the position will link the French possessions in the Mediterranean with the rich mineral lands proposed for conquest in the south.