This region is one of the hottest in the world. The sun stands so high at mid-day that the shadows of the dromedaries disappear beneath them. You long for sunset, when the shadows lengthen out and the worst of the heat is over. It is not really cool even at night, when, moreover, you are plagued with whole swarms of gnats. Baluchistan and Persia abound with scorpions, which are indeed to be found in all the hot regions of the five continents. About two hundred species have been distinguished. Some are quite small, others six inches long. Some are dark-brown, others reddish, and others again straw-yellow, as in Baluchistan. The body consists of a head and thorax without joints, and a hinder part of seven articulated rings, besides six tail rings. The last ring, the thirteenth, contains two poison glands and is furnished with a sting as fine as a needle. The poison is a fluid clear as water. Scorpions live in rotten tree-trunks, under stones, on walls, and as they like warmth they often enter houses and huts, and creep into clothes and beds. The scorpion leaves his dark den at night and sets out on the hunt. He holds his tail turned up over his back, in order to keep his sting from injury and to be ready at once for attack or defence. When he meets with a desirable victim, such as a large spider, he darts quickly forward, seizes it with his claws, which are like those of crabs, raises it above his head in order to examine it with his eyes, which are turned upwards, and gives it the death-stroke with his sting. Then he sucks up the softer parts and grinds the harder between his jaws. The young ones, which are active as soon as they are born, are like the old ones from the first day, but are light-coloured and soft. They crawl about their mother's back and legs and do not leave her body for some time. When that happens the mother dies, having meanwhile wasted away. The sting of large scorpions is dangerous even to human beings. Cases have been known of a man dying in great agony twelve hours after being stung. Others get cramp, fever, and pains before they begin to recover. A man who has often been stung becomes at last insensible to the poison. Many a time I have found scorpions in Asiatic huts, in my tent, on my bed, and under my boxes, but I have never been stung by one. On the other hand, it has been the fate of many of my servants, and they told me that it was difficult to find out where the scorpion had stung them, for their bodies sweated and burned equally intensely all over. In Eastern Turkestan it is the practice to catch the scorpion which has stung a man and crush him into a paste, which is laid over the puncture made by the sting. But whether this is a real cure I do not know. THE INDUS