The Islands of Cape-Verde

Sources from old books

1685. Geographia universalis: the present state of the whole world by Pierre Duval.

The Islands of Cap-Verd. THe Islands, which are in parallel with Cap-Verd, are in number ten, and go under the Name of that Cape, which is in the most Western part of Africk. The Ancients called them Hesperides and Gorgades. Poetry has plac'd those fine Gardens therein, which it feigned to be kept by a Dragon. Christopher Columbus says, they are ill named, because that in his third Voyage, he found they were dry and barren. They belong, for the most part, to the Portugueses, who transport from thence Salt and Goats-skins. Salt is made naturally there, in Ditches along the Sea. There is so great abundance of it, principally in the Isle of May, that the Flemmings call all these Islands, the Isles of Salt. The chief one is that of St. James, with a small Town of the same Name; the others are St. Anthony, St. Vincent, St. Lucy's, St. Nicholas, Insula Salis, Buen avista, del Fogo, and de Brave; there are some of these who have no Inhabitants, unless some Goatherds. The Ocean, which is near it, bears the Name of the Green Sea, by reason of the great abundance of an Herb, that is found there of a Green and Yellowish Colour, which makes it resemble a Meadow, in the double Latin sense of Aequor.