III

FRANCISCO I. MADERO(From a photograph taken in 1911)

I look about this comfortable home and think howsheltered a spot had been forsaken but a short week ago, of the treasures chosen from walls and cabinets to be out of possible revolutionary harm, and now all is lying at the bottom of the sea, off Cape Hatteras, and we, strangers, are safe in the shelter of this home. "Who shall escape his fate?" I keep saying to myself.

May 13th.

On the 10th Juarez was captured with its commanding officer, General Navarro, by Orozco and Giuseppe Garibaldi, who is down here following out the family traditions. I am writing in the comfortable little library, doors opening everywhere on to the flower-planted corridor. I have been reading Creelman'sLife of Diaz, and three volumes of Prescott are waiting on my little table. Suddenly I find I am hungry with a great hunger for the printed page and the old objective and impersonal habits of thought. In Vienna the personal, with its "grand seigneur" contour, seemed to replace quite sufficiently for the time any objective views of life. A woman who reads there is likely to bemal vue, which for some reason does not at all do away with the insistent seductions of Viennese life.

Yours from the Dolder received, and the sight of the envelope showing the familiar Zürich lake and hills made me realize the mountains and seas that separate us. Elim went to sleep with the envelope under his pillow. The beautiful park nearest us, the "Alameda," of which I inclose a post-card, is unfortunately haunted by Indians, picturesque, hungry, dirty. If it is true, as transcendental souls say, that beauty is food, I need not worry aboutthem, but it does not make the place very tempting for Elim's airings. He will have to be driven up to Chapultepec Park.

We are to be presented to the President and his wifethis week, and are looking forward to meeting the maker of modern Mexico and his charming consort. They are in their large house near the Palacio, but generally at this season have moved to Chapultepec.

May 16th.

Yesterday Madero and Carbajal, who is the peace envoy of Diaz, whatever that may mean, went into conference at Juarez to consider the proposals of the Diaz government. Everything here is in a melting condition, and how it will crystallize the fates alone know.

Various "innocent" bystanders were killed or injured at Douglas in the early days of the revolution. Some still more innocent, looking neither to the right nor to the left, also got hurt, as, for instance, the lady leaning over the wash-tub with her back to the land of the cactus. They have put in a nice little bundle of claims, and one flippant newspaper at home suggests putting the town of Douglas on wheels and moving it to a place of safety, rather than going to the expense of invading Mexico for the recovery of claims past and future.

Last night we dined at the handsome French Legation in the Calle Roma. The minister and his wife are away, and in their absence thechargé d'affaires, De Vaux, is living there with two friends, a Mr. de Vilaine, veryau courantwith Mexican matters, and who has large mining interests in Taxco and Colima. He showed us some interesting silver ingots from a little mill at Miramar on the Pacific coast, made up after the manner of the early Spaniards.

A young man, D'Aubigny,[1]in business here, completes a pleasant trio, and we had a very agreeable dinner. The retiring Spanish secretary, Romero, just appointed to Teheran, and his Viennese wife were also there.Romero bears testimony to race, and his long and elegant silhouette fitted into the charming rooms most harmoniously; but a tall, distinguished-looking man, whose name I did not get, ought to have been hanging, clad in a ruff and velvet doublet, in a gilt frame among the Velasquez in the Madrid museum.

The Belgian minister, Allart, who has been here during the last several years of Don Porfirio's glory, took me out. The conversation everywhere turns on the political situation, suppositions as to the abdication of Diaz, prophecies as to how and when Madero will arrive, if the city will offer resistance, and each one's little plan of campaign in case of siege.

There is a temporary narrow-gauge railroad running from the arsenal to the Buena Vista station, across the beautiful Paseo, for the expedition of men and munitions if necessary, which Allart told me appeared last March in the night soon after Limantour's return. Nobody seems to know exactly what forces are at the disposition of the Federal government. The newspapers get rich on the situation, however, and certainly it enlivens the dinners.

May 20, 1911.

The Madero forces are in possession of the ports of entry at Juarez and Agua Prieta, and can collect the customs which, as one minister said, would be spent in fancy by all, but in reality by the usual nearest few.

I saw some Mexican suffragettes the other day whom I wish their American sisters could have gazed upon. They were armed with bandoliers full of ammunition crossed over their breasts, and it did look like bullets rather than ballots among the sisterhood here.

N. has photographed thepatioand corridor, and I will send you some copies as soon as possible.

Yesterday I called with Mrs. Wilson at the house ofMrs. Nuttall, of philological and archæological fame, who is away. It is the celebrated but ill-omened house[2]that Pedro de Alvarado, Cortés's beloved, hot-blooded, dashing lieutenant, built just after the Conquest, when Coyoacan was the favorite spot of the high-born and high-handed survivors. It has a most artistic façade, pink, with the pink of ages, and decorated with a lovely lozenge-shaped design.

One enters through a great carved wooden door, with an old shrine above it, into a beautiful courtyard with patches of sun and dark corners, and going up a broad flight of outside stairs one finds oneself on a wide Bougainvillea-hung veranda.

Mrs. Laughton, Mrs. Nuttall's daughter, gave us tea in a high-ceilinged, thick-walled room, filled with flowers and bric-à-brac, with a beautiful, very large, couple-of-centuries-old portrait of a nun Mrs. Nuttall had found in some convent looking down on us. As the poetry and beauty of that old civilization invaded me I thought, "This is what all of Mexico might be, and is not." Beautiful shell designs are over each door leading into rooms of romantic and unexpected proportions. Afterward we went down-stairs and passed through the courtyard, in one corner of which is an old well, overgrown with flowers, which has a history as dark as its depths. The body of Doña Catalina, the first wife of Cortés, is said by evilly disposed historians to have been thrown into it after a quarrel between herself and Cortés in the old near-by Palacio.

As we walked in the garden I felt some strange magicexhaling from it all, something possessing and almost imploring. There were such lights and shadows, such contours of cypress and eucalyptus, mingling with quince and pear trees. The old arbor in thecarrefouris overgrown with white roses, and the rest of the garden is a mass of lilies of various kinds, heliotrope, and great tangles of trailing pink geranium and honeysuckle. Blue-flowered papyri were clustered about a microscopic, water-lilied lake, quite black in the late afternoon light. Around all was an old pink, vine-grown wall. It was thehortus inclususof poets, and I perceived then in its fullness the dark, lovely imprint of Spain upon the lands she conquered. The English, German, French stamp on their colonies that I have seen is pale, effaceable, and doubtless would be lost immediately once the power is withdrawn. But this Spanish stamp has a deathless beauty, and in all the washings of all the generations it does not seem to come out or off.

I stay at home a good deal. It is so pleasant—and after so many years of the concurrences, of the displacements, the hastes and excitements of the great world, how I love this full leisure! After all, what is needed to make life interesting, I am discovering, is not action, but atmosphere, and that I have here.

The President is very ill. I am deeply disappointed that our audience has to be put off. I want to see the old régime, now decidedly tottering, in its accustomed setting. It appears he has an ulcerated tooth, and there can be no receptions, formal or informal, in the present state of affairs. Indeed, I have not seen "hide or hair" of any of the actual government. Doña Carmen, of whom I hear so many tales of goodness and tact, combined with the charming elegance of a woman of the world, seems adored by high and low, and is very Catholic. The not too drastic enforcement of thefamous "Laws of Reform" is said to be due to her influence.

I have been looking into the history of Mexico since the "Independence"—to try to get some sort of a "line" on governmental psychology. So much bloodshed has always attended a change of government here.

First came men like the priest Hidalgo and Morelos, his disciple, men of burning hearts and flaming souls. Then appeared a set of what to-day we would call intellectuals: Comonfort, Lerdo, Juarez are types. The long reign of Diaz was preceded by all sorts of upheavals, in which any one who had anything to do with government lost his life.

However, all this concerned the Mexicans alone. But now, with disorders menacing huge foreign interests, a new element of discord and complication comes in. As the generations renew themselves with certainty and promptness, in the end the blow to things industrial is the most serious; and don't think me heartless for stating this simple, cruel truth. Diaz seems at last pushed to the wall, and, of course, with him many foreign interests, which I understand are vital to the life of the country. He has had much wisdom, but the gods seem to have withheld knowledge of the very practical recommendation of one of the old philosophers about succumbing in time. He is supposed, however, to have promised his resignation, if his conscience lets him. He fears anarchy, and, of course, he knows his people very, very well.

Even I, stranger and alien, have a sort of feeling that if this revolution proves successful the "liberties" of the Mexican people will, as usual, get lost in the mêlée. Giuseppe Garibaldi is said to have received the sword from old General Navarro, when he gave it up at Juarez. Can courtesy to foreigners be carried further? TheBostonEvening Transcripthad an amusing bit, particularly so to me, saying the difficulty of finding out what is happening in Mexico is that of telling which are the names of the generals and which those of the towns.

May 22d.

I am at home to-morrow, Tuesday, for the first time, to whomever it may concern, taking the day every other week, as seems the custom here. Besides getting settled I have begun laying siege to the Spanish language with my dictionary and my special system; I must learn to read it immediately. An old copy of De Solis is what I am "at" now,Historia de la Conquista de Mexico, printed in Amsterdam, beautifully bound in red leather with gold tooling, dedicatedal Serenísimo Señor Maximiliano Emanuel Duque de las Dos Bavieras. I gloated over its title-page, and its "chaste and elegant style" makes easy reading.

The natural changes are so beautiful here. The day gives way to night without any twilight, but instead there is a sort of richly colored lining to the first darkness that has a suggestive, indescribable charm and mystery. When Mrs. Wilson and I drove home from the Casa de Alvarado yesterday a mass of amethystine shadows closed about us and all the world, and then in a moment it seemed to be night; but as I got out of the motor I found the darkness was rich in the same way some very old, glinting brocade would be rich.

Mexico in full revolution—Diaz's resignation wrung from him—Memories of the "King in Exile"—President de la Barra sworn in—Social happenings—Plan de San Luis Potosí.

May 23d.

My first "Tuesday" was accompanied by a drenching rain, but the colleagues mostly showed up,noblesse oblige, each giving some rather disquieting items about the political situation, according to his special angle.

Mrs. Wilson, who always does what it is "up" to her to do, of course came. We are the only nation here having an embassy. All the others have legations or agencies of some sort, or have turned their affairs over to the most related friendly nation on the spot. It puts the Embassy in a position of continual supremacy as far as rank and importance go.

Mr. de Soto, the "Velasquez" of the French Legation dinner, came in late. He had spent last winter in Rome with the Duke and Duchess d'Arcos. The duke was Spanish minister here years ago. We talked of distant Roman friends. He has often been to Marie K.'s beautiful house. I shall enjoy seeing something of him. He knows Mexico in all its phases, and I find myself eager to turn the pages of this wonderful new chapter, which I feel should be written on maguey, not on mere paper.

May 24th, midnight.

Mexico is in full revolution, or, rather, in what seems the normal act of getting rid of the executive. At five-thirtyI walked back to the Embassy with Mrs. Wilson, from the Japanese Legation near by, where we had been dallying with the German and Belgian ministers on Madame Horigutchi's day.

The butler, watching at the door, rushed out to the gate when he saw us, in the greatest excitement, passing old Francisco, the Embassy gendarme, to say that five thousand people were making a demonstration in front of the Diaz house in the Calle de Cadena just back of the palace, and that there was going to be trouble.

My one and instant thought was to get back to Calle Humboldt, to Elim, the falling of an empire being quite a side issue. Just then the ambassador drove up in his motor, having come by a roundabout way from Diaz's house, where he had been making inquiries as to the President's health. He had just escaped being caught up in the mob.

I jumped into the motor, and he told Alonzo to take me home as quickly as possible. The growling, rumbling sound of a far-off mob is a disquieting thing, and I was trembling for my boy as I drove along. We had the thick doors of the courtyard entrance (the vestibule, orzaguán, as they call it) closed and barred, all the front shutters fastened, and soon were as snug as possible. Too snug to suit me, for, once my infant was safely barricaded, I felt the spirit of adventure rising.

N., who had been on an errand at the Foreign Office, where he heard the news, came running across the Paseo, thankful to find us all safely housed, with the further information that mitrailleuses had been placed on the palace roof, and that the police had fired on the crowd in the great square, who were shouting, "Death to Diaz!" many being killed and wounded.

Later on, about nine o'clock, with Dearing and Arnold, who were dining with us, we sallied forth to go to thetheater as we had planned. A drenching, torrential rain had come on. The streets along our route were completely deserted, the rain having dispersed the mob more efficaciously than the cannon. There were not more than a dozen people in the whole theater, "El Principal." The only inconvenience I had on that eventful night was being seated in front of three of our own compatriots, whose peculiar form of blasphemy got so on my nerves that I had us all change our seats before we could even try to listen to a farce on the order of "Pagliacci," without the killing.

As we came out there were no cabs to be had, not even a disreputablecoche rojo, and we walked home down the Avenida San Francisco and the broad Avenida Juarez under umbrellas. The town had a general look and feeling of having been through something. All was barred and silent except a few broken shop-windows, whose owners had not been quick enough about their shutters. In the windows of one of the tea-rooms were piles of untouched cakes and candies. One had only to put one's hand out to get them.

Farther along, huddled up on the steps of the gaudy Spanish exhibition building, were two tiny Indian boys not more than five or six years old, so sound asleep that their little hands refused to close over the pennies we tried to give them. We finally put the money, not in their pockets (they did not have enough clothes on to have pockets), but behind their little backs. They have probably been cold every night of their lives, so damp stone steps and a rainy street could not prevent their slumbers.

MADERO AND OROZCO IN 1911—MADERO AT THE LEFT

Well, Madero is coming to change it all, to heal the antique sores of Mexico. "Ojalá" (God grant), as I have discovered they are always saying when they aren't saying, "Quién sabe?" I must put out my light. Ithas been an exciting day. Even if you have not been fired on yourself, it's nervously disturbing to know that near-by people have been.

Ascension Day.

This morning the mob was shot down at the top of our street in the broad Plaza de la Reforma, between the Foreign Office and the statue of the Iron Horse. I felt myself not an innocent bystander, but a foolish one, as to the sound of quick-firing guns and screams I stepped out on the balcony and saw the mob running in all directions, some dropping as the guns placed by the statue turned with a horrible, regular slowness across the street.

N. had rushed home from the Embassy by a side way, hearing that our street was the scene of action. I felt we ought to do something besides remaining behind closed doors when that agony was being enacted; but I was told by N. and Mr. Seeger, who came up from his office below to see how things were going, that Americans in general and the Embassy in particular should keep out of the trouble. In fact, it wasn't our funeral. Police-attended stretcher-bearers appeared on the scene a little later, and the streets were cleared of dead and wounded.

N. sent a note to Limantour, to the Ministry of Finance, when things were at their hottest, thinking it might possibly suit his needs to be within our extra-territorial walls for a few hours. He sent back the most appreciative of notes, saying, however, that he had no alarm.

A day or two ago, standing at the window, I saw him come out of the ministry. There is a clean-cutness about him and his Gallic origin is written all over him in an unmistakable elegance. He is considered by friendand foe alike to be absolutely incorruptible, and the only thing I have ever heard even whispered against him is that he isrich. However, the Romans that made the roads doubtless got rich, but they made the roads, which is what mattered to the Romans. On all sides are evidences of his taste as well as of his ability, for, besides creating modern financial Mexico and placing her on her golden feet, he laid out the park, he designed the uniforms of the mounted guards there, beautified many of the streets, and in a hundred ways helped to make Mexico City what it now is. The Paseo, the beautiful avenue leading for several kilometers from the "Iron Horse" to the park, was laid out during Maximilian's time, and was known as the Calzada del Emperador; and the beautiful eucalyptus-trees that adorn it were planted by order of Carlota—tempi passati.

May 25th, later.

All quiet again in the shade of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl. To-day at 4.30 Diaz's resignation was finally wrung from him.

There are picturesque tales of Doña Carmen standing, black-robed, by his side as he signed away his glory and power, and perhaps that of Mexico as well. A vast throng waited all day for the news before the closed doors of the Chamber of Deputies; but the mob is again simply a peaceful-appearing crowd, singing the national anthem and crying, "Viva Madero!" interspersed with an occasional "Viva De la Barra!"

I must dress for dinner at Hye de Glunek's, the Austrian chargé—the only invitation any one has accepted or given since some days. Mrs. W., who is always very kind, lends us the Embassy auto. One of the incidents yesterday was the looting of the pawnshops. I am afraid the ParisHeraldwill have blood-curdlingaccounts of the goings-on, and I will send a cable to you, hoping it will get through. In the midst of life we are no more in death here than elsewhere, and it is all extraordinarily interesting.

May 26th.

The streets were completely deserted last night as we drove home from the very excellent dinner at Hye's, at which the German and Belgian ministers, the French chargé, the Spanish minister and his pretty daughter, the Romeros,et al., assisted. One sees no Mexicans of any political shade abroad these days, and the change of government has been effected mildly rather than otherwise, if one looks back over Mexican history. A few hundreds killed and wounded, a very few thousands of dollars damage done to property in town, and the great and long and glorious Diaz régime is a thing of the past. Mexico is to tread untrodden paths.

Robles Dominguez, who is Madero's representative here, has been dashing about the streets on a big black horse accompanied by his followers, all wearing the national colors on their hats, promising in the name of Madero everything on earth to the people gathered at the various points where he speaks. In many places the tramcars leading to the different suburbs were taken possession of by the mob, who rode free, to carry the good news "from Ghent to Aix." The cars everywhere were simply plastered with them.

Señor de la Barra was sworn in as President of the republic in the afternoon. No anti-American riots, which were at one time feared, though the ambassador and his staff had the pleasant experience of being hissed as they went to the Cámara for the ceremony. From the little balcony of the drawing-room I could see De la Barra quite plainly as he came down the Paseo,bowing on all sides, grave, but amiable and dignified, in the presidential coach, and across his breast the green-and-white-and-red sash of his high office.

Glittering, blue-uniformed outriders with polished silver helmets preceded him, and the crowd was rending the air with "Viva De la Barra!" I saw De la Barra with my physical eye, but I was thinking of the great old Indian, the maker and molder of Mexico, who was wont to go down the broad avenue in that same coach to the sound of vivas, and wondering would they see his like again. I am sending you a post-card photograph of Maximilian in uniform, and Carlota in a blue dress with many pearls, which is not really so beside the point. Diaz helped to close that epoch. We now witness the closing of the Diaz epoch.[3]

May 27th.

Though the mob turned into the tamest thing possible in mobs, and the revolution into the tamest thing possible in revolutions, I keep thinking how both did their work and how never again will Diaz drive up the beautiful Paseo, receiving the plaudits of the people. The town is busy preparing for the reception of Madero and for the elections. General Reyes is still feared by the new party. Madero said to one of our newspaper correspondents the other day that the only unfavorable thing in the Cabinet was the admission of General Reyes asMinister of War, and that the members of the Cabinet and governors of states would be selected later by himself and De la Barra. It looks as if in the apportioning out of the plums the first seeds of discord will be sown in the new political garden.

Yesterday we went motoring with Mr. S. and Dearing over the great, beautiful hills to the west. Something like Italy and yet not at all like it in the feeling of light and color. For the first time I looked down on the city from a great height, seemingly on a level with the hills that hold the cup-like valley, and I saw again in all their beauty the two shining volcanoes flanked by the matchless hills. There was an immense exhilaration in the fitting of the mind to such a remote and gorgeous horizon, and suddenly I found it did not matter if it were peopled or not; it seemed quite complete, even humanly. There was a wonderful lightness about the air. Little puffs that one could not call wind came and brushed our faces with a brilliant yet feathery feeling. The Ajusco hills with their suggestions of brigands (I have not been thinking much of brigands since the tales of Raisuli and Perducaris and Miss Annie Stone) gave a "human" touch to the whole.

In going out of the city we passed through Tacubaya, a very attractive suburb with handsome houses hidden in great gardens, and an old palace of some archbishop; but the most interesting thing about it was the Indian market, spread out on the steep, cobblestoned highway. There was just enough room for the motor to pass between the mats on which were spread their wares. Great piles of pottery, bright rolls of cotton, were laid on squares of cloth, or little mats made of rushes, and there were infinitesimal groupings of eatables of various kinds, little piles of five nuts, or three oranges, or little heaps of melon-seed, or beans.

Indians, picturesque beyond description, were bending, selling, buying, just as they have done since prehistoric days. It was the brightest bit of color I have ever seen, with the thread of Indian life that it was strung on. The Indians compose themselves into beautiful pictures everywhere, and further on the road was full of pottery-makers, bent beneath their huge loads, basket-makers, sandal-makers, women and children equally laden, going with their quick Aztec trot to their journey's end.

All was quiet in the little villages through which we passed. I wonder if they know something has happened to their Mexico?

May 29th.

In the revolutionary lull we have all been vaccinated, and I have been looking into the drinking-water question quite exhaustively.

I felt rather discouraged when the doctor suggested boiling even the mineral water,Tehuacan, from a place near Orizaba. In general the microbe question keeps foreigners busy, and more alarmed if they have children than the sound of artillery. One has to learn to live here. The food leaves much to be desired, and if we were delicate or gourmets, there would be a great deal of difficulty ahead.

Friday Mr. and Mrs. Wilson and the Embassy staff come for dinner, the first time I will have had any one except those dropping in informally. I don't know how it will turn out. There is a nice American range in the kitchen, but the cook, it seems, prefers the classicbrasero, and a turkey wing to fan the coals. It is not as primitive as it sounds, however, for thebraserois a tiled affair and has holes on the top for saucepans. They say the American stove would make even the saints too hot.How they produce the nice roasts or bake with the thing is a mystery to me.

However, the whole cooking business is beyond me, though I have put an embargo onriñones(kidneys). Every time there is a halt in remarks about the menu, Teresa suggestsriñones, which I despise with my whole soul. I am not enthused by organs, anyway, as food. I would put an embargo oncabrito(kid), but stewed it's objectively one of the best dishes she prepares, and I would eat it under another name. A certainsopa de frijoleswould be nice anywhere, and with slices of lemon and hard-boiled egg in it is really delicious, and recalls vaguely the thick mock-turtle soup of my native land. There is a "near" apricot, calledchabacano, ripe at this season, but it's only "near," and there are quantities of small, fragrant strawberries.

At Hye de Glunek's I ate, for the first time, the very fine mango, in its perfection. The eating recalls stories of the original fountain-pen and the bath-tub, but the fruit is delicious, even the first time you eat it, with a slightly turpentiny, very clean taste, and cascades of juice. There is a way of sticking a single-pronged fork into one end, while you peel it with a knife, and then proceeding, which makes its consumption possible in public.

MEXICAN WOMEN SELLING TORTILLASPhotograph by Ravell

To-day we lunched with the British chargé in his temporary quarters, as the new Legation, which is going to be a delightful dwelling, built with some regard for latitude and longitude and altitude, is not yet ready for occupation. Hohler came to Mexico from Constantinople, and wherever he goes collects works of art. In his apartment were all sorts of quite beautiful, Oriental bric-à-brac and hangings, which, somehow, did not seem as Oriental here as they would in other places. Simon, the newly arrived FrenchInspecteur des Financesof the Banco National, with a brilliant Balkan record behind him, was also there with his wife. They are "enjoying" the Hôtel de Genève, while awaiting the arrival of their Lares and Penates, stalled somewhere between Vera Cruz and Mexico City, and Madam S.'s maid is already down with typhoid fever.

Yesterday, when N. boarded the tram, a smartly dressed, handsome Frenchwoman had just got on with neither Mexican money nor vocabulary. He came to her assistance, and they felt quite like long-separated friends on discovering "who was who" at the luncheon. In the center of the table was a lovely silver bowl of old Mexican artisanship, filled with unfamiliar, theatrical-looking fruits. I compromised on agranadita, which is like a pomegranate in color and taste, but small and oblong in shape. Of course the "old hands" were trying to enlighten the new-comers, but it was rather the blind leading the blind. Nobody can tell what the gigantic political changes will lead to, or what this new wine of fraternity and equality, fermenting in the oldest of bottles, will do to their heads. A gentle joke as we got up from the table, about the pictures in last week'sSemana Ilustrada(showing insurrectos burning bridges), to the effect that the national sport might soon prove to bela promenade, if artless, was more to the point.

There is a good deal of talk here about something called the "Plan de San Luis Potosí," apparently the building stones of a new Mexico. It's the manifesto Madero made at that town in the early stages of his revolution, a rather personal and arbitrary political document, in which he declares himself the mouthpiece of the nation's will, and pronounces the last election of Don Porfirio illegal. It was, as far as I can see—which is not, of course, very far—like all his other "elections." Madero finished by saying that the republic being withouta legitimate government, he assumes the provisional presidency. It's so simple it may succeed, and the Diaz government left a comfortable sum in the treasury to begin operations with, some sixty-five millions.

May 31st.

The "official" family dinner went off all right, so I am having the ambassador and Mrs. Wilson, Von Hintze, Hye, the Austrian chargé, and De Vaux to dinner on Sunday—eight in all. This is the limit, not of the table and the dining-room, but possibly of the handmaidens. Leclerq, who is departing for Brussels and the Foreign Office, has given me the use, till I have made other arrangements, of his table-silver. I do, indeed, sigh for the silver and linen in Vienna.

Madame de la Barra receives theCorps Diplomatiqueon Saturday afternoon. It will be her inaugural reception as first lady in the land, and, indeed, the first complete tableau of thechers collèguesthat I will have seen since our arrival. I suppose I will get a glimpse, at least, of some of the up-to-now invisible Mexican statesmen.

Life goes on here quietly, as far as I am personally concerned, but underneath it all there is the unmistakable beat and throb of changing governments, the passing of the old order, the beginning of the new, with all its potentialities. It is a many-colored background. I am sending an illustrated paper of the shooting done by the mob in my street,La Semana Ilustrada, which is printed at the other end of Calle Humboldt, as is alsoLa Prensa, a newspaper belonging to Francisco Bulnes, the cleverest of the publicists here, and a star among the intellectuals. I am between the making of history and its annals.

TheCourrier du Mexiqueand theMexican HeraldI read daily. TheCourrier du Mexique et de l'Europe(Ancien Trait d'Union) was founded in 1849, and has survived many vicissitudes and many governments. Its files would make strange reading, with their succession of political hails and farewells—or rather farewells and hails.

Gabrielle is doing very well, though she is suffering fromHeimwehfor Vienna. The Austrian chargé sends me accumulations of theNeue Freie Presseto sweeten what she calls "diese Mexico." The Indian maids are almost too good to be true. There's a dusting and a sweeping going on that would satisfy a better housewife than myself.

I am quite in love with my street—it has so much for the eye, so much to intrigue the imagination. As I told you, just opposite is the Finance Ministry. Endless motors belonging to the old and new régime and the intermediate, theTrait d'Unionrégime, fraternize in front of it. Diagonally across is the home of Diaz's son, Porfirio, who seems to have neither the talents nor the ambitions of his father. The house is a very Mexican-looking affair, though not after the good old models. It is a reddish pink, with superfluous cupolas and bay windows, all lined with pale blue. Great vines of the magenta-colored Bougainvillea, "the glory of Mexico," hanging everywhere, further enliven it. The tiny triangular garden also has various obstreperous and violent-colored botanical specimens.

A little farther down the street, however, is the real gem, for there I perceived, in passing, storied Spanish-American life being enacted. It's a low one-storied house with heavily grated windows, only a couple of feet up from the street. Behind that grating I actually saw a pink-robed señorita sitting, with a flower in her hair and a letter, which I knew must have been a love letter, in her hand, all just as it ought to be, as far as local color is concerned.

The other night, hearing the sound of music, I stepped out on the balcony. Behold! there were the outlines of some kind of Romeo playing the mandolin, in front of that window. It's so complete, so ridiculously like what it ought to be, you will think I have added something, but you don't have to add anything here; it's always all there. That end of the street is where the offices ofLa Prensaand ofLa Semana Ilustradaare, and the little newsboys (papeleros) bring things quite up to date when they dash past crying out new editions.

The other end of the street, which is short, gives on the Plaza de la Reforma, where the new, handsome Foreign Office is, and the beautiful equestrian statue of Charles the Fourth of Spain, which Humboldt said could only be compared to that of Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio. There are two or three handsome houses belonging to Mexicans between me and the Plaza. The Suinagás', whose daughter is married to a French diplomat, and the Saldivars', next the Finance Ministry, are other houses in the good old style of several generations ago. In former days the streets were familiarly spoken of ascalles de Dios(streets of God); pious, picturesque, but probably not resembling those of our eternal abiding-place!

NELSON O'SHAUGHNESSY(Secretary of the American Embassy, Mexico, 1911-1912)

PAUL LEFAIVRE(French Minister to Mexico, 1911)

FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA(Presidentad interimof the Mexican Republic between Diaz and Madero)

First reception at Chapultepec Castle—First bull-fight—A typical Mexican earthquake—Madero's triumphal march through Mexico City—Three days of adoration

June 4th.

Yesterday we went to the De la Barras' first reception, a tea neither formal nor informal, at beautiful Chapultepec, lifted high up on the historic hill overlooking the city and the beauteous valley, in its gorgeous setting of mountains and volcanoes.

There is a pretty grotto-like modern entrance at the foot of the hill which takes visitors to the elevator, a shaft pierced in the rock, and from the darkness one steps suddenly on to the enchantment of the terraces with their matchless view. There is a winding road which takes longer, ending at the great iron gateway of the military school, and one must cross the broad terrace, where the cadets are walking about or drilling.

Madame de la Barra, herself a widow, the sister of the President's first wife, has only been married a few months, and is smiling, fair, and un-Mexican-looking, of Swiss descent. She was daintily dressed in some sort of beige chiffon with pearls about her neck, and had easy, pleasant manners.

There was no chance for conversation. The whole Diaz set, with very few exceptions, has vanished, not into thin air, but into retirement or Europe, and society will have to be reorganized from new elements. These new elements did not seem at first view to be verymalleable. A circle of iron, in the shape of ladies—old, middle-aged, and young—kept formed about Madame de la B., and I was wedged in, for quite a while, between a granddaughter of Juarez wearing, among other things, a huge and, it appears, historic emerald pendant, and a young, inquiring-looking woman. I mean inquiring for these climes, where external phenomena only remotely give rise to speculation. She was in a décolleté mauve passementerie-trimmed gown, with a train—what we would call an evening dress. The experienced foreign diplomats mostly kept outside the circle.

Mr. de la B. was moving about the beautiful flower-planted terraces, smiling, suave,homme du monde, as well as President of Mexico, but the skein from which he is to knit the national destinies is somewhat tangled. He and Mr. Wilson were colleagues in Brussels. Now the turn of the wheel has made him President, and Mr. Wilson ambassador.

Some of the well-seasoned foreigners were predicting immediate difficulties in the disbanding of the revolutionary forces, which seem to be composed of those who don't want to be disbanded, those who want to be disbanded immediately, and those who want to be bandits.

I must say I found it all very interesting—a little gem of a picture of life in Mexico. As a sudden darkness rose up from the valley, rather than fell from the sky, one of the volcanoes gone suddenly blue, the other still aflame, the gathering melted away.

June 6th.

Yesterday, Pentecost Sunday, I went to Mass in the cathedral where Maximilian and Carlota were crowned, and Iturbide and his consort. It is a large, ornate structure, though the lowish roof, earthquake height, I suppose, takes away from the effect of the interior. Three huge altars and a choir also combine to spoil theperspective, but it is imposing and the outside is a lovely grayish pink. It is built on the site of the great Aztec temple, over countless images and remains of theteocali(temple), which the conquerors demolished as soon as they got their breath, after the taking of the city.

I found it full of a multicolored crowd. The Indians were most in evidence, but there were all sorts and conditions of people. Despite what is said to the contrary, the Church has an enormous influence on life here—on institutions, habits, and customs. The convents, monasteries, and seminaries were suppressed in 1859, and no one since has been allowed to leave money or property to the Church by will, but here as elsewhere there is no way to prevent the Church from getting rich. With a constantly renewing collection of individuals having no personal wants, concerned largely with the promises of another life, the aggregate of their activities through the ages will always be enormous in the way of mathematical progression; and I don't see in a free world why they haven't as much right to spend their money and energies that way as in the usual spending for personal and mundane aims.

In the afternoon we went to the bull-fight; it was De la Barra's first appearance at one as President of the republic, and a great occasion. The vast crowd was very enthusiastic. We saw every color of garment, every shade of face, every shape of hat, under the blue, blue sky. Wede la haute, or, for that matter, anybody who can pay the price, sit in the shady side of the ring. The sunny half is occupied by dazzled, smiling Indians.

The President was greeted by the magnificently played national air, and the stirring of the great concourse as it rose, and thevivas, had a something impressive. A moment or two after, theentradatook place.

Some beloved matador, whose name I don't know, was greeted with cheers that rivaled those offered to the President. He had on a gorgeous blue-and-gold cloak, resting on one shoulder, the body of the cloak caught up and held with the left hand on the left hip, leaving the right arm free. He was followed by other less-resplendent individuals (the men of hiscuadrilla), and soon the ball really opened by the dashing out of the door of a splendid dark bull.

I hid my eyes at the goring of the horses, poor old Rosinantes that they were, ready for the grave, and other high-lights of the occasion. The President gave many purses. It was a very expensive afternoon, doubtless, but it will increase his political popularity. The gaily-dressedtoreroswould go up to the box after their special "coups," and, with uncovered heads, hold out their hats, and he would lean forward and present the purses. At one time the arena was covered by hats of all sizes and descriptions thrown by enthusiasts, and returned to them by the various bull-fighters. As you will suspect, however, "bull-fightmeno bull-fights." It isn't one of those things that it will please me some day to have done, according to the Latin poet. I would like to sponge it out of memory.

The dinner here this evening was not a success. Perhaps the scent of the bull-fight hung around me still or perhaps the personal elements did not combine chemically. The dinner itself was all right. There is a delicious, fat-breasted quail (codorniz) to be had at this season. The conversation was of prophecies concerning the 7th, when Madero, the "Messiah," the "Bridegroom of Mexico," whom he is to lead into paths of peace and plenty, is to enter the city. I kept quoting:

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