During this walk I observed some very large mango trees, many of them twice the size of those growing about Rio. These trees have a handsome appearance when seen at a distance, surrounding the numerous white-washed country houses; the trunk, which is often of great thickness, seldom rises above eight or ten feet above the ground, when it branches into many widely-spreading ramifications, which rise to a great height, and are so densely covered with leaves as to be impenetrable to the burning rays of the sun, thus forming a most agreeable and luxuriant shade. At three o’clock we returned to the boat, well loaded with my day’s spoil. In the evening I dined with a gentleman to whom I brought letters from Rio, and there met a young Scotchman, who invited me to sleep at his house. Next morning he accompanied me a short way into the country; we started a little before six o’clock, walked to the distance of about six miles, and reached the city again by a different route before ten. The country inland, so far as I could observe, forms a sort of elevated table-land of a gently undulating nature, and the appearance of the vegetation bespeaks great richness of soil. Besides great plenty of large mango trees, I observed many jacks (_Artocarpus integrifolius_) of almost equal size, the trunks and large branches of which were loaded with their large yellow-coloured fruit. This tree is very much cultivated in this part of Brazil, and, I was told, that a few years before my visit, during a scarcity of provisions in the province, its fruit, which is yielded in the greatest abundance, was the means of preventing a famine among the black population. On our return to the city, we passed a small village close by the sea, the inhabitants of which, principally blacks, are mostly occupied in whale fishing, the sperm whale being rather plentiful on this part of the coast. On entering the bay, we observed a number of whale boats going out, manned by negroes. On visiting Bahia, one circumstance which forcibly strikes the attention of a stranger, even coming from the other provinces of Brazil, is the appearance of the blacks met with in the streets; they are the finest to be seen in the country, both men and women being tall and well-formed, and generally intelligent, some of them even, as I have elsewhere observed, being tolerable Arabic scholars. They have nearly all been imported from the Gold Coast, and, not only from their greater physical strength and intelligence, but from being united among themselves, they are more inclined to insurrectionary movements than the mixed races in the other provinces. Only a fortnight after I left Bahia a serious insurrection took place, headed, indeed, by white Brazilians, but supported by most of the black population; they kept possession of the city for many months, nor were they fully dispossessed of it till after the destruction of much life and property.