A story was told me by the late Dr. Fagergren, a Swede in Persian employ, who had been twenty-five years in Shiraz, to the effect that scorpions, when they see no chance of escape, commit suicide; and he told me, that when one was surrounded by a circle of live coals, it ran round three times and then stung itself to death. I did not credit this, supposing that the insect was probably scorched, and so died. I happened one day to catch an enormous scorpion of the black variety. In Persia they are of two kinds: black; and light green, or greenish yellow; the black variety being supposed to be much the more venomous. The full-grown scorpions generally are from two to three inches long; I have seen one five inches when extended from the tip of the claws to the sting, but he was phenomenal. The one I caught was very large, and to try the accuracy of what I supposed to be a popular superstition, I prepared in my courtyard a circle of live charcoal a yard in diameter. I cooled the bricks with water, so that the scorpion could not be scorched, and tilted him from the finger-glass in which he was imprisoned unhurt into the centre of the open space; he stood still for a moment, then, to my astonishment, ran rapidly round the circle three times, came back to the centre, turned up his tail (where the sting is), and deliberately by three blows stabbed or stung himself in the head; he was dead in an instant. Of this curious scene I was an eye-witness, and I have seen it repeated by a friend in exactly the same way since, on my telling the thing, and with exactly the same result. For the truth of this statement I am prepared to vouch. Of the effects of the sting of the scorpion (generally only the lower orders are bitten, as they are barefooted, and their work may take them to cool and damp places where the insects love to lie) I have had much experience: I consider it is never fatal, save in the case of infants stung in the throat, but it is very painful, the only remedy being liquid ammonia to the wound, which gives speedy relief. I have never seen a case of serpent-bite in Persia, and hydrophobia is very uncommon, though it is said to exist. The only case of rabies I have seen is that of Pierson’s dogs, narrated previously. Hornets and wasps sting badly, and frequently I have known death occur in a child much stung. The sting is worse than that of the British wasp. As to the Persian tarantula, it merely bites. A curious custom in Persia is the “nishan,” or token. The token is some secret conveyed by a third party, as a token or sign of the consent of the giver of the token to the request. Thus a man will say, if away from home, and one wishes to borrow his horse, “Tell my steward to give you my horse, by the ‘nishan’ (or token), that I gave him a present this morning.” As the steward knows that the giving of the present was only known to his master and himself, he hands over the horse at once. CHAPTER XXIII. SHIRAZ.—THE FAMINE.