104 
CAVE AND CLIFF DWELLERS. 
making the arid, rocky region beautiful 
with blossoms and shade. During the 
rainy season this country is the home of 
the tarantula, the centipede, and the scor¬ 
pion, for they flourish equally as well as 
the flowers. 
In one of the rooms of the American 
Consulate, facing the principal plaza, is 
lodged a piece of a shell, thrown there, 
singularly enough, by an American man- 
of-war when Guaymas was taken in 1847, 
during the Mexican War. At that time 
the Portsmouth and the Congress entered 
the harbor, shelled the town, and took it. 
The piece of shell referred to lodged in 
the huge wooden rafters of the building, 
and as these are never covered in the 
simple architecture of that country its 
rusty, round side is plainly visible from 
beneath. From the positions assigned to 
