Though this was neither my first nor second visit to Bahia, I was still not indifferent to the magnificent or rather luxuriant tropical scenery which it presents. A bank of such verdure as these sun-lit climes alone supply, rose precipitously from the dark blue water, dotted with the white and gleaming walls of houses and convents half hidden in woods of every tint of green; while here and there the lofty spires of some Christian temple pointed to a yet fairer world, invisible to mortal eye, and suggested even to the least thoughtful, that glorious as is this lower earth, framed by Heaven's beneficence for man's enjoyment, still it is not that home to which the hand of revelation directs the aspirations of our frail humanity. STATE OF THE COUNTRY AT BAHIA. I had last seen Bahia in August, 1836, on the homeward voyage of the Beagle; and it was then in anything but a satisfactory condition; the white population divided among themselves, and the slaves concerting by one bloody and desperate blow to achieve their freedom. It did not appear to have improved during the intervening period: a revolutionary movement was still contemplated by the more liberal section of the Brazilians, though at the very period they thus judiciously selected for squabbling with one another, they were living in hourly expectation of a rising, en masse, of the blacks. That such an insurrection must sooner or later take place--and take place with all the most fearful circumstances of long delayed and complete revenge--no unprejudiced observer can doubt. SLAVE TRADE. That selfish and short-sighted policy which is almost invariably allied with despotism, has led to such constant additions by importation to the number of the slave population, that it now exceeds the white in the ratio of ten to one, while individually the slaves are both physically and in natural capacity more than equal to their sensual and degenerate masters. Bahia and its neighbourhood have a bad eminence in the annals of the Brazilian slave-trade. Upwards of fifty, some accounts say eighty cargoes, had been landed there since the Beagle's last visit: nor is the circumstance to be wondered at when we bear in mind, that the price of a slave then varied from 90 to 100 pounds, and this in a country not abounding in money.