Speculations as to the wealth of "the Greatest Mexican"—Fourth of July—Madero as evangelist—The German minister's first official dinner with the Maderos as the clou.

July 1st.

There are great speculations as to Diaz's wealth, and millions are put to his account with a light hand.[5] Some say he has twenty millions in Spain, in Paris, in Wall Street. I am sure I hope he has feathered his nest—both he and Limantour. As I remarked before, the Romans that made the roads probably did, but they made the roads. There is a not-negligible quantity in Mexico, in abeyance for the moment, which is very suspicious and uncertain, not of the honesty of Madero (all parties allow that), but of his ability to handle the situation, which demands civic talents of a high order.

President de la Barra has a pension plan which will doubtless give him much trouble, as it will have to include all of Mexico, or those left out will know why. As was observed by some one the other day, the more the Mexicans try to change Mexico the more it remains the same thing.

Practically new electoral methods are to be tried out, and how Madero, unless he has a secret flair for civic matters, is to solve them is what we are all waiting to see. The people's ears are full of promises. The government would promise the snow of Popo—anything; but there is a ditty being sung about town now that gives one food for thought:

Poco trabajo,	Little work,
Mucho dinero,	Much money,
Pulque barato,	Cheap pulque,
Viva Madero!	Long live Madero!

It's a bit wabbly for founding a government on, but doubtless represents very accurately the dreams of the pelados (skinned ones), as the peons are called.

You speak of the subscriptions for the earthquake relief here. It was not a national disaster. National disasters take other forms in this latitude. Scarcely a ripple is left, and as for the money to repair the city and close the splits in the streets, the municipality gives that and the contractors jump for joy.

I do not minimize the dangers here, but, of course, I don't draw highly colored pictures, being sure of your interest in any statement of facts, however plain they may be. I have rarely felt safer anywhere than in Mexico City; certainly never more comfortable and continually interested. We often walk home after dinners or bridge. The clean-washed air is so refreshing after being in rooms, however large, at this altitude. The gendarmes stand at every few crossings with their lanterns. The streets are deserted, dry, and clean. There is no Nachtleben. The program is here early to bed, early to rise, and the thrice-blessed siesta to renew the day.

I am sending off a delightful book by Flandrau, Viva Mexico. It has the real sparkle and "feel" of this magnetic land. How true a word he spoke when he said, "One does not go to Latin-America just to see what it is like, or because one has seen it before and chosen to return, but because circumstances in their wonderfully lucid way have combined to send one."

I have just had a letter from the King of Denmark. You know how promptly he always answers, la politesse des rois. But the old Copenhagen days with their blues and grays and Aryan ways of thought and habits of life are immeasurably remote from these, not only geographically and in time, but psychologically.

The other evening at the Arbeu Theater, where Virginia Fabregas, an old favorite here, was playing, my eye was suddenly arrested by the profiles as I looked from the box down a row of seats. They were so diverse, so strange, like those one comes across on the ground floor in the corner rooms of museums—Mongol, Indian, Aryan. There did not seem to be any one type. It was just a patchwork loosely sewn together, the bits coming out of unknown generations from the desires of the four corners of the earth.

July 3d.

The rainy season bat son plein. Immense quantities of water are thrown down from the heavens between three and six every day, after which it has always cleared, with the exception of that historic evening when the mob was "out" to destroy the creator of its present Mexico. How quickly republics, not alone this strange Indian republic, put away their great! It is most discouraging to one desirous of finding all good things in that form of government.

I have finished De Solis. Also I have "read" a grammar, and, of course, there are the servants, instillers of that rather patchworky thing called kitchen-Spanish, and there are the newspapers. A teacher is coming next week. I haven't yet felt like mapping out any special plan of study, being in readiness at certain hours, but am enjoying the "simple life" thrown against this colorful background of a colorful race in revolution.

Only two dinners this week, at the Brazilian chargÉ's, and on Sunday the German minister gives his first dinner. He has taken a large furnished house in the Calle Liverpool, very expensive and suitable, as far as space goes, for a Legation. It belongs to a wealthy Mexican who was seduced, however, by art nouveau. Large hat-racks and high jardiniÈres in the form of giant pansies in natural colors furnish the great hall and testify to his ruin.

Von H. endeavored to strike some sort of average by hanging some beautiful rugs from the square railing of the second story. His good furniture from Europe arrived in such a state that he said nothing was needed, as case after case was unpacked, but brooms to sweep out the debris.

July 4th, evening.

Our Fourth-of-July celebration took place at the Tivoli Eliseo in the Puente de Alvarado, which is like any picnic ground anywhere (unless you look up at the matchless sky). There was the usual accompaniment of pink lemonade, peanuts (called cacahuetes here), and brass bands. There was a luncheon with speeches which would have stirred my national soul more if I weren't still in a half-dream at finding myself in this strange and gorgeous land. As I was leaving the festive scene word was passed round that Madero was coming and would speak.

I stood on the outer fringe of the crowd, which I did not try to penetrate, and found it most interesting to see, even at a distance, the evangelist "evangelizing." Madero's face, so familiar in photographs, and which seems featureless but for the broad forehead and black, pointed beard, becomes illuminated as he speaks, and his gestures are continuous, the voice soft, with a smooth flow of words. I could not catch what he said, but I knew it was his work of hypnotizing Mexico.

A more material diversion, N. told me, was created later by a cock-fight, forbidden by the police, but secretly adored, which took place in a little inclosure. There is no doubt about that animal being in every sense the cock of the Mexican walk. He is the only beast really cherished by them. He even shares the precious hat, and his idiosyncrasies and caprices are tenderly studied. When he fights little knives are tied onto his legs, which is why the sport, though brilliant, is short as far as the cock is concerned.

I keep wondering how Madero can "divide up the great estates" and deliver them to that unknown, and here even unlabeled, quantity, "the people." According to the Plan de San Luis PotosÍ, it would seem as if Mexico were a cake one had simply to cut into and then pass around the slices.

There is an underlying excitement in the European contingent of the Diplomatic Corps. The sending of the Panther to Morocco looks like one of those Franco-German incidents that we were familiar with when in Berlin, and may lead to real difficulties.

July 8th.

To-day what started out to be a little golfing lunch, gathered together by N. in the sunny morning hours when it seems it will never rain again, turned into a sort of disputa about many things, within four walls. A tremendous hailstorm came up and darkened and nipped the town, so the "foursome" sat long talking, the water pouring from the roof. Leclerq, Koch, and Nacho Amor are all cultivated, agreeable young men. Amor was educated at Stonyhurst, and has the soft, pleasant voice and delightful English of Mexicans who have passed young years in England.

As I write, near and very brilliant stars, under which I was not born, are shining into the patio, and in a moment I must go and walk about the inner veranda and look up into that dazzling bit of heaven in the square frame of the house. If it were only not so far and unsharable with my beloved ones!

July 10th.

Last night the German minister gave his first big dinner, at which the Maderos, making their dÉbut in official international life, were the clou. We arrived as it was striking eight, but the Belgian minister, whom we met going in, said they had already arrived.

I found the large room rather full, with a hitherto unsampled Mexican contingent. Von H. was standing by the door, near the Maderos, and we were presented almost immediately. Madero, seen at close range, is small, dark, with nose somewhat flattened, expressive, rather prominent eyes in shallow sockets, and forehead of the impractical shape. But all is redeemed by expression playing like lightning over the sallow, featureless face and his pleasant, ready smile.

He speaks French and some English, preferring the former, but lapses continually into Spanish, his ideas coming too fast for a foreign medium, and he uses many gestures. There is something about him of youth, of hopefulness and personal goodness; but I couldn't help wondering, as I looked at him during the dinner, if he were going to begin the national feast by slicing up the family cake.

Madame Madero might be a dark type of New England woman with a hint of banked fires in her eyes. There is a sort of determination in the cut of her face, which is rather worn, with an expression of dignity. She, too, is small and thin, and was dressed in an ordinary high-necked black-and-white gown, a narrow "pin stripe," with the most modest of gold brooches holding the plain, high collar. She gives an impression of valiance without any hint of worldliness, or desire for any kind of flesh-pot. I pictured her at Chapultepec, and somehow could not fit her in as chÂtelaine of that high-standing palace.

Of course all the other guests were in their best "bib and tucker." I wore that "Spitzer" white satin with the floating scarlet and black tulle draperies. It seems very magnificent here; but in Paris, at Madame PorgÈs's great dinner, and at the Russian Embassy, the train did not seem quite so long and slinky, nor the drapery so tight around the ankles, as the dresses of the wonderful Frenchwomen.

As we went into the dining-room I saw, a mile off, the unmistakable name O'S. by Madero's, and naturally thought it was for me. I sat down, then had to take my appointed place quite a good deal higher up by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. So disappointed. It was N., however, who was to help him fill the "suburbs" of the table. Countess Massiglia presided; on her right was the Minister of Foreign Affairs; then I came; then an elaborately uniformed but, as far as I was concerned, anonymous military gentleman whose card was under his napkin—which he did not use.

The Maderos are reputed enormously wealthy; their wealth is mostly invested in lands, however. I understand Madero spent all the available family cash on the revolution, though he told N. last night that no revolution had ever been carried through so cheaply from the standpoint both of men and of money.

Von H. does things very well. The courses were accompanied by wines of special, rare vintages, and his dinner was lavishly and handsomely presented. He has the same majordomo that the Towers had in Berlin—that huge, blond man (I forget his name). I asked him how he liked Mexico; he permitted himself the hint of a sigh, and said it was not Berlin, adding, "Aber es giebt nichts zu machen."

Madame Madero was placed between the Italian minister and the Austrian chargÉ, our host having the wife of the Norwegian minister on his right and Madame Romero on his left. N. said Madero was very militaristic, considering he was come to bring peace, and somewhat suspicious of the United States.

On the other side of Madero was that anomaly, a Mexican vieille fille, whose name I did not get. I supposed she belonged to one of the two or three elderly military men present. N. suggested to Madero his falling in with the views of the United States in the regulating of claims, and he said the following in French, "You Americans always act on the presumption that we Mexicans are always in the wrong." N. said this was À propos of his remark, "Now, Mr. Madero, you are going to be President, and I know when your government gets in you will clear up all matters pending between the two countries, and let us begin with a clean slate."

There had been some discussion among us all as to how Madero should be seated at table. He was the undoubted next President, the leader of the EjÉrcito Liberatado, but actually at the moment he was without official status of any kind, and could not be placed above plenipotentiaries with their definite ranking.

Von H. cut the Gordian knot, rather informally, by putting him next N. "so that they could have a talk," which they did!

Handsome young De Weede turned up yesterday, having made the ascent of Orizaba, a great feat. He came down in a dreadfully burned condition, however, and spent some days in bed attended by a physician. He is the son of our friend, the Dutch minister in Vienna.

He returns there as first secretary with his father, regretting Washington very much.

He had seen the Hitts in Guatemala, and showed me photographs he had taken of their house with its lovely patio, fountained and flower-planted. The roughly paved street gave the outside a desolate look which it doubtless has not really got under that sky, as blue as this. It was so nice to see De W. again, and the "welkin rang" with reminiscences of the Kaiserstadt and the happenings of our mutual friends.

July 12th.

Von H. has been criticized for having had Madero at a formal dinner, where he could not have the first place at table, being the Liberatador and more than all the others put together. However, I imagine it is those who were not at it who felt critical. I inclose the menu. Apart from the huachinango, the wonderful Mexican redsnapper, the fish that Indian runners used to bring up on their backs from Vera Cruz for Montezuma's delectation, it might have been a handsomely presented dinner anywhere in the world.

This morning I took De W. to the museum to look over the treasures, pre- and post-Cortesiana. The building forms part of the Palacio Nacional, some of which dates back to the great captain, and it was the celebrated Casa del Estado during the viceregal period. The old colonnaded patio is a beautiful receptacle for a flooding sun, as well as the altars and carvings of a bygone civilization. In the middle are the Sacrificial Stone, and the great Calendar Stone, which has contributed more than anything else to give the Aztecs their reputation for scientific achievements. They adjusted their festivals by the movements of the heavenly bodies, fixed the true length of the tropical year, etc.

For some generations after the discovery of the Calendar Stone in the subsoil of the Plaza it was cemented onto one of the towers of the cathedral, and only in the eighties was removed to the museum. The Piedra de Sacrificios is appalling when one thinks of its origin and use; but with an extremely handsome young man leaning against it, under that warm sun, in that mellow old courtyard, it was not, for the moment, so dreadful to contemplate. Its true home was the top of the great temple, and there CortÉs found it.

During the siege of the city the conquerors, watching from afar, are said to have sometimes seen their own captured comrades led up the great stairway to the stone on which they were placed, their chests opened with a special razor-like knife made of obsidian, the palpitating heart torn out, held for an instant toward the sun, this sun, and then flung at the feet of the god of war. Huitzilopochtli, the aforesaid god, is a huge block of basalt, half man, half woman, who was "born" just as one sees him now, with the addition of a spear in the right hand, a shield in the left, and on his head a crest of green plumes, going Minerva one better. Thousands were sacrificed to him yearly under this wondrous sky, enfolded by this softly penetrating, vivifying sun.

Afterward we went up and saw the "Maximiliana" for "Auld Lang Syne," not much nor very interesting—a huge amount of cristofle silverware and the saddle used by the unfortunate emperor when he was captured at QuerÉtaro (May 15, 1867). The pictures of Maximilian, one on a dashing white charger, show him a full-lipped, blond-bearded, blue-eyed Austrian obviously unable to cope with the Mexican political situation. Carlota, in pale blue and pearls, hangs by him. These portraits are by Graefle, the Viennese court painter of the period. Napoleon the Third, the cause of all their troubles, hangs near with EugÉnie—a copy of the Winterhalter portrait of her, I think.

We took a look at the relics of Juarez, the "man in the black coat," as the only Mexican ruler that didn't wear uniform is called. The plainest of civilian garb of the late sixties was in the vitrine, and near by was the bed in which he actually managed to die. This last, as far as I can see, is unique among Mexican relics, Mexican public men not having the habit of dying in bed.

Dearing has gone away, on three months' leave, and N. is at his desk.

I must stop and take my baby on my lap. He has been standing by my side, saying, "Dy will be done." He is being taught various prayers, and repeats them on all occasions. He is waiting with a bit of blotting-paper to blot my letter, which I am sure he will do, and wants to know if you got the last thousand kisses.

Evening.

These past two days I have lunched at Coyoacan. Yesterday at the house of some American friends of the ambassador's—the Becks—who are charmingly situated in a huge old house surrounded by a great, tall-treed garden, and filled with lovely old things. Mr. Potter, who is down here to watch over large interests of his own and other people's, is most witty and entertaining, and with his friend, Mr. Butler, went with us. The day before Mrs. Laughton, who had met De Weede, asked us all for lunch at the Casa de Alvarado. I was glad to show him some more "local color," and that beautiful old house is simply oozing with it.

After lunch we went into the garden for our coffee, while Elim played with Mrs. Laughton's two little children; but, even with young voices sounding, a soft sun shining upon lovely flowers, and sipping coffee under the pleasant shade of the rose-grown arbor, the garden is eery and melancholy-inducing.

On our way back we stopped at the ZÓcalo, and went to the Academia San Carlos, the national picture-gallery, Academia de las Nobles Artes de Mexico, as it was called under the viceroys. It has a huge collection of plaster casts which cost the king several hundred thousand pesos. Do you see the "LaocoÖn," the "Apollo Belvedere," the "Young Hercules," etc., being brought up on Indian backs from Vera Cruz? The patio and corridors were full of scaffolding and plaster scrapings as we passed in.

Humboldt speaks of seeing great halls lighted with Argand lamps, evidently then the dernier cri of illumination, and the Indian, the Mestizo, and the son of the "grand seigneur" side by side, drawing and modeling from the antique molds. Tolsa, the celebrated artist of the "Iron Horse," taught here.

We took a glance only at some of the boresome, well-painted academic modern canvases, which made us feel like dashing into the street to get some real pictures. The rooms where the early Mexican painters, the Echave brothers, Cabrera, etc., hang were closed for repairs or cleaning. Indeed, the whole place was at sixes and sevens, each object plastered with from two to five numbers. As we had "met" most of the casts in European museums, it didn't matter. We walked up the gay Avenida San Francisco and stopped in at "El Globo," a cafÉ much frequented from this hour on. On coming out De W. took photographs of the Jockey Club, its blue and yellow tiles particularly brilliant against some threatening rain-clouds, and some others of the charming entrance to the old Church of San Francisco opposite; he said they could be hung as "Sacred and Profane Love." We got back to Calle Humboldt as the heavens opened and deluged the town.

General Crozier, just arrived from Washington, came in the darkest and wettest hour. Such an unexpected pleasure! There are not many Americans to visit Mexico this summer. All the people who used to come in their private cars and bring a note of home and gaiety are conspicuous by their absence. There is no way of heating the houses, and sometimes during the rainy hours there is a cold dampness which is very penetrating. Stirring the embers of old acquaintance and talking of "home" happenings was a very pleasant way of alleviating the temperature this afternoon.

July 17th.

Don't fear that I shall do anything rash about going to Tehuantepec in the present state of things. I have even given up the trip to Puebla. They are fighting and killing there again, and in Calle Humboldt they are not.

Notwithstanding the press, which has its liberties and the smiles of the government, things are not really very stable. Aunt L. writes that San GerÓnimo has been filled to overflowing with refugees from Juchitan, the county-seat, twelve miles away. The feeling there between the Maderistas and Porfiristas is very bitter, and has just culminated in an uprising of the Indians against the new Federal authorities, who had to fly for their lives from a howling mob of two thousand Indians armed with rifles, clubs, and machetes. The Federal General Merodia made no resistance, but came with the civil authorities of the government to San GerÓnimo, giving the mob no excuse for sacking and robbing Juchitan. Every house in San G. is full, and furniture piled in the street. It seems to me no one but the Mexicans will be surprised that the overthrow of Diaz has not brought about the millennium.

De Weede,[6] who departs this evening for Vienna via the Grand CaÑon and the Yellowstone Park, has just been squeezed into N.'s frock-coat and top-hat (not carrying such impedimenta himself) to call on the President. The Dutch minister lives in Washington.

General Crozier comes for dinner on Wednesday. We have just lunched at Stalewski's (the Russian minister's), and he served the delicious blinis with caviar that all expect when lunching there. He often takes remote journeys into the interior, coming back with a silver ingot and curious bits of carving. The diplomatic species always dream dreams, and his is to tread again the streets of Berne. In the evening Captain Sturtevant, our military attachÉ, gives a dinner at the American Club for General Crozier.

Later.

I have spent a last delightful evening with Prescott, and Humboldt is waiting in five attractive, clearly printed old volumes, Paris, 1811, that Mr. de S. brought me yesterday. Now, just a century after, I am to turn the pages. I have also some volumes of Alaman, who brings things down to 1846.

I forgot to speak about my Spanish teacher, with whom I have been studying as well as "Castellano." Her mind is about as mobile and receptive as a tin saucepan upside down, and she is always late. Sometimes her watch stops, sometimes the tramcar won't stop, sometimes she forgets her purse or her keys, and has to go back, etc.

She is still young, heavily powdered, insistently perfumed, big-busted, tightly laced, tightly skirted, and keeps a very short foot in a tight, high-heeled slipper in front of her. She hates the sun, as I discovered when I tried to have the first lessons in the sunny corridor.

This morning she told me in a lackadaisical, dreamy way that the noise of the typewriter (she has some sort of afternoon office work, for which she is doubtless totally unfitted) was not good for her; that she had been thinking over things, and had concluded that, if I would arrange it, introducer of foreign ladies to the President's wife was what she was fitted for. She said I probably did not realize what temptations the despacho office offered.

I dare say she has met a few devils in her day. She wound up by saying that the society of ladies would be less of a strain. It was all done quietly; she has evidently dreamed dreams. She did not streak her face when she wept, dabbing her large black eyes carefully with a coarse lace handkerchief drenched with cheap scent. I explained as gently as I could that the position she was thinking of was filled by the chef du protocole. Though, without doubt, her life is completely commonplace, she gave me the feeling of really not understanding anything at all about her, and that is one of the charms of Mexico. An illusion of elusiveness is continually presented that keeps one on the chase for the pleasure of the chase. You never get anything or anywhere, but your interest is kept up—which, after all, is the great thing.