ANTI-SCORPION SOCIETY. 89 
sounds amidst which it was impossible to 
hear oneself talk. 
Durango is also celebrated as being the 
head-quarters, as it were, of the whole scor- 
pion family. During the spring, especially, 
so much are the houses infested by these poi- 
sonous insects, that many people are obliged 
to have resort to a kind of mosquito-bar, in 
order to keep them out of their beds at night. 
As an expedient to deliver the city from this. 
terrible pest, a society has actually been form- 
ed, which pays a reward of a cuartilla (three 
cents) for every alacran (or scorpion) that is 
brought to them. Stimulated by the desire 
of gain, the idle boys of the city are always 
on the look-out: so that, in the course of a 
year, immense numbers of this public enemy 
are captured and slaughtered. The body of 
this insect is of the bulk and cast of a medium 
spider, with a jointed tail one to two inches 
long, at the end of which is a sting whose 
wounds are so poisonous as often to prove fa- 
tal to children, and are very painful to adults. 
The most extraordinary peculiarity of these 
scorpions is, that they are far less dangerous 
in the North than in the South, which in some 
manner accounts for the story told Capt. Pike, 
that even those of Durango lose most of their 
venom as soon as they are removed a few 
miles from the city. 
Altho we were exceedingly well arm- 
ed, yet so many fearful stories of robberies 
said to be committed, almost daily, on the 
Southern roads, reached my ears, that before 
S* 
