Dinner at the Japanese Legation—The real history of the Japanese in Mexico—Dinner at the Embassy—Coronation services for England's king—The rainy season sets in.

June 16th.

Last night dinner at the Japanese Legation. A very elaborate and beautiful centerpiece arrangement of tiny lake and grove decorated the table, and the food was very good. That was the Belgian touch. They are used to la bonne chÈre. All the dinners now are a sort of hail and farewell for Von Hintze and ourselves newly arrived, and the departing Romeros, who have been here some time and are very popular.

There is always a lot of talk about the Japanese in Mexico, but their real history here, as I have discovered, is not disquieting. Some Japanese statesman (of course I forget his name) first conceived the idea in 1897 of starting coffee-plantations on a large scale in Chiapas. The pioneers were called "colonists," and were followed by "immigrants." All had bad luck with the enterprise at first, but by economy and industry finally got prosperous.

As for Horigutchi himself, amiable and intelligent and, of course, unusually intimate with the French language, it is said he knows how the Emperor of Korea died, puÉs quiÉn sabe? At any rate, he is peaceful and smiling now, his Belgian wife is dressy and hospitable, and he has an interesting little daughter. The house is the usual compromise between good Japanese things and expensive European ones, always painful to our esthetic sense, and doubtless to theirs as well.

Again I have waked up to this wondrous sun and these open windows, and the shining, flower-planted patio. Am having a little luncheon here. Von H. Stalewski, the Russian minister, Martinez del Campo, third introducer of ambassadors (he of the charming English), and the Simons and the French chargÉ. A magnificent blue Puebla bowl, such as were used in olden days for baptismal feasts, now very difficult to find, decorates the center of the round table, filled with red and purple sweet-peas—guisantes de olor they call them; fifty cents for the whole glory. All our cakes, ices, etc., are ordered from the CafÉ de l'OpÉra, kept by French people in the Avenida Cinco de Mayo, where the Mexicans drop in between five and eight for tea or chocolate or some sort of consummation.

Von H. is finding himself out of his natural orbit here. His eyes filled with tears when he said to me at dinner at the Italian Legation the other night: "I miss my friends." We were having a little exchange of sentiments and illusions. I imagine he is un sensitif, and it is a far cry from what we have had and known before. He has the world manner, varied official experience, and an unexplained personal equation.

There had been no diplomatic dinners for six months here on account of the troubles, and when everybody has had one things will settle down again.

June 18th.

Your letter saying you were thinking of the Pentecostal fires on the Umbrian hills, has come. I forget all pains, if pains there were, and am glad of that and all other experiences life has given us together.

Mrs. Wilson goes to the United States next week for several months until her boys are settled in school and college. I shall miss her very much. Besides being one of the most admirable women I have known in public life, she is a pearl of a chefesse.

I have dwelt much on my easy, pleasant days here, surrounded by new beauty and new interests, books, companions—on this experience of an unknown land with nothing of the "pace that kills," nothing of the wearing "concurrence" of the great cities. In fact, I am experiencing to the full, in Elliott's phrase, "the comforts of the tropics."

Elim has been enticed into the tiniest and darlingest of pajamas on the ground of being ready for the next earthquake. For some reason or other he had clung passionately to his little nighties.

June 21st.

A delightful dinner at Mrs. Wilson's last night, everything bearing the special dainty touch of the embajadora. The table was a mass of La France roses and violets, and the pink-shaded silver candelabra emerged from light clouds of pale-pink gauze. Large and deliciously prepared langoustes, very difficult to get here, formed the piÈce de rÉsistance of the dinner, which was most lavish throughout.

On Mrs. Wilson's right was Rafael Hernandez, first cousin of Madero, a very handsome man of about thirty-five, with dark eyes and flashing white teeth and brilliant coloring. Every now and then you come across some one here with what we could call a "complexion," and you never forget it.

I am interested in seeing the members of the coming dynasty appear on the political stage. Hernandez, a lawyer of repute, is now Minister of Justice. I sat between Mr. Lie, the Norwegian minister, who is a son of the author, Jonas Lie, and we talked a bit of Scandinavian literature. I read only last winter his father's great, sad book, Les Filles du Commandant. I had known him slightly in Berlin, when he was military attachÉ, before what we used to call the "divorce" of Sweden and Norway. Hohler was on my other side, and between courses we did quite a tidy bit of confidential journeying on the political chart. He is ready to crown King George and Queen Mary to-morrow at the new Legation.

June 22d.

This morning we went to the coronation service for the King of England and Emperor of India in the English Church. The thought of the same prayers going up everywhere for him on whose dominions the sun never sets was solemn and imposing. The Te Deum, preceded by the Litany beseeching the Lord to have mercy on miserable sinners, alone kept it in the note of mortality. The town is flagged, and, though we had no king in person, we had the most royal weather.

Several hundred people were at the reception, all the chers collÈgues, various members of the government, and the British colony, of course, with a certain number of curios, such as all colonies produce on national occasions. The Legation is not yet furnished, though the chancery is in full blast, and Hohler has his study most comfortably arranged with a lot of his own good things. He has just found an old Spanish cabinet—a mass of ivory, mother-of-pearl, and silver inlay—that makes you wish you were a burglar.

At five o'clock President de la Barra, very smiling and spick and span, arrived, accompanied by his staff. He was welcomed by the national hymn played with much spirit by an excellent orchestra. Others of the government were Emilio Vasquez Gomez, Ministerio de la GobernaciÓn (Interior), and Mr. and Mrs. Pimentel y Fagoaga (Mr. P. is a banker and president of the city council). Mr. Creel, former ambassador to Washington, white-haired, pink-complexioned, un-Mexican-looking, I also met.

Later General Reyes appeared, once, possibly still, the idol of the army. You can never know here, for between sunrise and sunset the victorious hero can become a hunted fugitive. There is something about General Reyes, with his upstanding mien, long, white beard, shrewd eye and air of experience, which would not have fitted badly into the presidential frame. I am told there was a psychological moment when fate was ready for him, but now it is too late; other forces have crystallized.

Everybody was making the rounds of the Legation, which is going to be most attractive and convenient, the only fly in the ointment being the garden. During the building large quantities of lime and all sorts of unproductive refuse were left about, and Hohler thinks he will have to change the whole soil. Up to now nothing save the irrepressible but beautiful pink geranium has been willing to grow.

I was borne, with the French chargÉ, on a steady tide, setting through the long, unfurnished dining-room, to a temporary grotto-like inclosure, the walls of which were lined with palm-trees and hung with the Union Jack, where the refreshments were served. I heard a little joke going around with the punch among the somewhat homesick colony, "Can you hear the crowns settling on the brows of King George and Queen Mary?" It mingled harmlessly with the congratulations and hand-shaking and health-drinking of a very pleasant and, one hopes, auspicious occasion. In London the sun had long since set on the actors in a new page of England's history.

June 25th.

There is no doubt about the rainy season having set in. Rain fell yesterday during three hours in drenching sheets that darkened the city. I could scarcely see across the street; but I had the lights turned on and proceeded with Prescott's Conquest, not read since years. I am entranced by his vivid, flowing style and the wealth of reference and learning. The very initiated have said that it is not all true, but if it isn't it ought to be, it's so good. The copy I am reading was published by Galignani in Paris in 1844, and must be a first edition, as his preface bears the date, "Boston, October 1st, 1843."

In a small section of the bookcase near my divan, where I sit or rest or where the tea is brought—where I always am, in fact—are the poets. I can reach out and refresh myself with almost any of them. There is a set in that old-fashioned blue-and-gold binding, such as you used to have (1878 is its date), containing Shelley, Keats, Byron, Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier, Mrs. Hemans, et al. But they are only a few of the denizens of the "poets' corner." Palgrave's Golden Treasury is the first book on the first shelf.

Peter and Paul's Day, June 29th.

The saints' days follow quickly here. Also I find that instead of indifferentism the churches are packed with men, women, and children on all occasions. Am now waiting for Madame Chermont, the agreeable American wife of the Brazilian secretary, and we drive to Chapultepec Park with our children and listen to the music. A fine military band plays by the largest of the natural lakes, and it is the great morning rendezvous of Mexico City. The two boys will disport on the grass and incidentally have a few "good" fights plastered in between the gentler occupations of catching butterflies and picking flowers.

Evening.

I made calls all the afternoon, two violent thunder-storms enlivening the getting in and out. At Madame Lie's an almost terrifying darkness fell, lasting for an hour or so. The lights were turned on, but we all continued to look like specters, with an unnatural, lusterless saffron light filtering in at the windows, showing the Indian butler coming and going quietly with the tea things, and lighting up delicate sprays of yellow-brown orchids from the Hot Country on the table in some Scandinavian silver vases. At six o'clock, as I came home, the volcanoes appeared like heaps of purest gold piled against the blackest of clouds.

San Pedro y Pablo seems to be celebrated here by the giving of toy pistols, and other noisy weapons, to children. There was more or less "popping" going on all the morning. For some reason there is a legend to the effect that the devil roams abroad on this day seeking whom he may devour.

I thought of San Paolo Fuori le Muri and the celebrations in the great Basilica, and the Roman world on its way out of the Porta San Paolo past the pyramid of Caius Cestus and the grave of Keats.

June 30th.

Your earthquake letter received. Remember, the Paris Herald has to live.

We see a good deal of the ambassador, and also of Dearing, clever and courageous. When the ambassador will leave I don't know; but we do know the greatest benefit a chief can confer on his first secretary.

Dearing is trying his hand at translating MallarmÉ, and last night we were turning the "Frisson d'hiver" round about, but we didn't do to it what he did to "The Raven."

It begins: "Cette pendule de Saxe qui retarde et sonne treize heures parmi ses fleurs et ses dieux, À qui a-t-elle ÉtÉ?"

We dine at the Austrian chargÉ's to-morrow. Everything always very soignÉ. He has an Austrian cook, I believe, and a pleasant mania for cleanliness. He will soon be leaving, as Baron Riedl from Rio Janeiro, his cousin, is appointed minister here. You remember him and his American wife from Rome.

I am sending a huge bundle of zarapes, dull blue and white, sewed up in canvas—so nice for the garden, and for Elliott on his terrace.