_22d._--At length all the invalids, excepting myself, are better; but, with another blister on, I can do little but write, or look from the cabin windows; and when I do look, I am sure to see something disagreeable. This very moment, there is a slave ship discharging her cargo, and the slaves are singing as they go ashore. They have left the ship, and they see they will be on the dry land; and so, at the command of their keeper, they are singing one of their country songs, in a strange land. Poor wretches! could they foresee the slave-market, and the separations of friends and relations that will take place there, and the march up the country, and the labour of the mines, and the sugar-works, their singing would be a wailing cry. But that "blindness to the future kindly given," allows them a few hours of sad enjoyment. This is the principal slave port in Brazil; and the negroes appear to me to be of a finer, stronger race, than any I have ever seen. One of the provisional junta of government is the greatest slave merchant here. Yet, I am happy to say, the Bahia press has lately actually printed a pamphlet against the slave trade. Within the last year, seventy-six ships have sailed from this port for the coast of Africa; and it is well known that many of them will slave to the northward of the line, in spite of all treaties to the contrary: but the system of false papers is so cunningly and generally carried on, that detection is far from easy; and the difficulties that lie in the way of condemning any slave ship, render it a matter of hazard to detain them. An owner, however, is well satisfied, if one cargo in three arrives safe; and eight or nine successful voyages make a fortune. Many Brazilian Portuguese have no occupation whatever: they lay out a sum of money in slaves; which slaves are ordered out every day, and must bring in a certain sum each night; and these are the boatmen, chairmen, porters, and weavers of mats and hats that are to be hired in the streets and markets, and who thus support their masters.