nches,
hard wood, and roots which penetrate down to the moisture beneath the
surface.

The great caravan road we are following is, however, exceedingly
desolate. Only at the stations is water to be found, and even that is
brackish; but the worst trial is the heat, which now, at the end of
April, becomes more oppressive every day. The temperature rises nearly
up to 105-1/2 deg. in the shade, and to ride full in the face of the
sun is like thrusting one's head into a blazing furnace. When there is
a wind we are all right, and the sand whirls like yellow ghosts over
the heated ground. But when the air is calm the outlines of the hills
seem to quiver in the heat, and the barrel of a gun which has been out
in the sun blisters the hands on being touched. In the height of the
summer the Baluchis wrap strips of felt round their stirrup-irons to
protect the dromedaries from burns on the flanks.

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