Our quarters were at the Veracruzana, where we occupied a great whitewashed room.  A large grated window opened into the garden, where the armadillo was fastened to a tree by a long string, and had soon dug a deep hole with his powerful fore-claws, as the manner of the creature is.  The necessity of supplying the “little man in armour” with insects for his daily food gave us some idea of the amazing abundance and variety of the insects of the district.  We caught creeping things innumerable in the garden, but narrowly escaped being stung by a small scorpion; and therefore delegated the task to an old Indian, who walked out into the fields with an earthen pot, and returned with it full of insects in about half an hour.  We reckoned that there were over fifty species in the pot.

Many of the houses and Indian huts were adorned with collections of insects pinned on the walls in patterns, among which figured scorpions some three inches long; and the centre-ornament was usually a tarantula, said to be one of the most poisonous creatures of the tropics, a monstrous spider, whose dark grey body and legs are covered with hairs.  A fine specimen will have a body about as large as a small hen’s egg, and, with his legs in their natural position, will just stand in a cheese-plate.  The Boots of the hotel went out and caught a fine scorpion for our amusement; he brought it into our room wrapped in a piece of brown paper, and was on the point of letting it out on our table for us to see it run.  We protested against this, and had it put into a tumbler and covered it up with a book.

The inner patio of the hotel was surrounded with the usual arcade, into which the rooms opened.  Close to our door was a long table, with a green cloth, where the Jalapenians were constantly playing monte, from nine in the morning till late at night.  All classes were represented there, from the muleteer who came to lose his hard-earned dollars, to the rich shopkeepers and planters of the town and neighbourhood.

I went early one afternoon to the house of the principal agent for the Vera Cruz carriers, to arrange for sending down our heavy packages to the coast.  There was no one at the office but a girl.  I enquired for the master—­“Esta jugando,”—­“He is playing,” she said.  I need not have gone so far to look for him, for he was sitting just outside our bedroom door, and indeed had been there all day.  Before he condescended to arrange our business, he waited to see the fate of the dollar he had just put down, and which I was glad to see he lost.