CAYMAN ISLANDS, a group of three low-lying islands in the West Indies. They consist of Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, and are situated between 79° 44′ and 80° 26′ W. and 19° 44′ and 19° 46′ N., forming a dependency of Jamaica, which lies 178 m. E.S.E. Grand Cayman, a rock-bound island protected by coral reefs, is 17 m. long and varies from 4 m. to 7 m. in breadth. It has two towns, Georgetown and Boddentown. Little Cayman and Cayman Brac are both about 70 m. E.N.E. of Grand Cayman. Excepting near the rocky coast, the islands are fruitful, mahogany and other valuable timbers with some dyewood are grown, and large quantities of coco-nuts are produced by the two smaller islands. Phosphate deposits of considerable value are worked, but the principal occupation of the inhabitants is catching turtles for export to Jamaica. The people are excellent shipwrights and do a considerable trade in schooners built of native wood. The islands are governed by a commissioner, and the laws passed by the local legislative assembly are subject to the assent of the governor of Jamaica. The population of the group is about 5000. The islands were discovered by Columbus, who named them Tortugas from the turtles with which the surrounding sea abounds. They were never occupied by the Spaniards and were colonized from Jamaica by the British.
CAZALÈS, JACQUES ANTOINE MARIE DE (1758-1805), French orator and politician, was born at Grenade in Languedoc, of a family of the lower nobility. Before 1789 he was a cavalry officer, but in that year was returned as deputy to the states general. In the Constituent Assembly he belonged to the section of moderate royalists who sought to set up a constitution on the English model, and his speeches in favour of retaining the right of war and peace in the king’s hands and on the organization of the judiciary gained the applause even of his opponents. Apart from his eloquence, which gave him a place among the finest orators of the Assembly, Cazalès is mainly remembered for a duel fought with Barnave. After the insurrection of the 10th of August 1792, which led to the downfall of royalty, Cazalès emigrated. He fought in the army of the émigrés against revolutionary France, lived in Switzerland and in England, and did not return to France until 1803. He died on the 24th of November 1805. His son, Edmond de Cazalès, wrote philosophical and religious studies.
See Discours de Cazalès, edited by Chare (Paris, 1821), with an introduction; F.A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (2nd ed., Paris, 1905.)
CAZALIS, HENRI (1840-1909), French poet and man of letters, was born at Cormeilles-en-Parisis (Seine-et-Oise) in 1840. He wrote under the pseudonyms of Jean Caselli and Jean Lahor. His works include: Chants populaires de l’Italie (1865); Vita tristis, Réveries fantastiques, Romances sans musique (1865); Le Livre du néant (1872); Henry Regnault, sa vie et son oeuvre (1872); L’Illusion (1875-1893); Melancholia (1878); Cantique des cantiques (1885); Les Quatrains d’Al-Gazali (1896); William Morris (1897). The author of the Livre du néant has a predilection for gloomy subjects and especially for pictures of death. His oriental habits of thought earned for him the title of the “Hindou du Parnasse contemporain.” He died in July 1909.
See a notice by P. Bourget in Anthologie des poètes fr. du XIXe siècle (1887-1888); J. Lemaître, Les Contemporains (1889); E. Faguet in the Revue bleue (October 1893).
CAZEMBE, the hereditary name of an African chief, whose territory was situated south of Lake Mweru and north of Bangweulu, between 9° and 11°S. In the end of the 18th century the authority of the Cazembe was recognized over a very extensive district. The kingdom, known also as the Cazembe, continued to exist, though with gradually diminishing power and extent, until the last quarter of the 19th century, when the Cazembe sank to the rank of a petty chief. The country is now divided between Great Britain and Belgian Congo. The British half, lying east of the Luapula, forms part of Rhodesia, and the chief town in it is called Kazembe. The native state, ruled by a negro race who overcame the aboriginals, had attained a certain degree of civilization. Agriculture was diligently followed, and cotton cloth, earthenware and iron goods manufactured. The country contains rich deposits of copper, and copper ore was one of the principal articles of export. The Cazembe had despotic power and used it in barbarous fashion. He had hundreds of wives, and his chiefs imitated his example according to their means. On his accession every new Cazembe chose a new site for his residence. In 1796 the Cazembe was visited by Manoel Caetano Pereira, a Portuguese merchant; and in 1798 a more important journey to the same region was undertaken by Dr Francisco José Maria de Lacerda. He died in that country on the 18th of October that year, but left behind him a valuable journal. In 1802 two native traders or pombeiros, Pedro João Baptista and Amaro José, were sent by the Portuguese on a visit to the Cazembe; and in 1831 a more extensive mission was despatched by the Portuguese governor of Sena. It consisted of Major José Monteiro and Antonio Gamitto, with an escort of 20 soldiers and 120 negro slaves as porters; but its reception by the Cazembe was not altogether satisfactory. In 1868 David Livingstone visited the Cazembe, whose capital at that time numbered no more than 1000 souls. Since 1894, when the country was divided between Britain and the Congo State, it has been thoroughly explored. An important copper mining industry is carried on in the Congo division of the territory.
See The Lands of the Cazembe, published by the Royal Geographical Society in 1873, containing translations of Lacerda and Baptista’s journals, and a résumé of Gamitto’s O Muata Cazembe (Lisbon, 1854); also Livingstone’s Last Journals (London, 1874).