Uprising in Juchitan—Madero receives his first delegation—The American arrest of Reyes—Chapultepec Park—Side lights on Juchitan troubles—Zapata's Plan de Ayala

November 8th.

I was planning to start for Tehuantepec to-morrow, when a letter came from Aunt L. saying that the general in charge of the Federal troops was giving orders to his army from her porch, the Pan-American Railway was damaged, bridges were destroyed, and cannon were being dragged into town by oxen and placed in front of her garden.

Everybody has been going to bed dressed, with papers and valuables close by, ready for flight at a moment's notice.

I was disappointed, and would still have carried out the program, my heart was ready for her, and things were cut off here, but I was obliged to take the advice of the ambassador, to whom N. showed the letter, as the risk might not be simply personal. There seems a fatality about my getting down there. A telegram also came from her through Mr. Cummings, always so kind, saying for me not to leave till things had quieted down.

The trouble is in the form of an uprising in the district of Juchitan against the state government (Oaxaca). The Governor, Don Benito Juarez (a son of the great Juarez, I think), had tried to separate the jefe polÍtico, Che GÓmez, from his office, a thing not lightly done. The result was that the Juchitecos, who dearly love a fight, gladly rose with "Che" against the Federals, who have been bottled up in the Juchitan church and barracks for days with no rest and no food; there must have been heavy losses. The firing can be heard from San GerÓnimo. A few soldiers have arrived, but not enough for their relief.

The mother of the army surgeon with the troops is staying with Aunt L., and is in the greatest anxiety about her son, a fine young man, a typical Spanish hidalgo. As long as he could he sent messages, but they have had nothing from him for several days, and, of course, at any moment the Federals may be wiped out. There are at least three thousand Indians against a couple of hundred "regulars."

The government has sent down more troops. Two brigades went this morning, the Foreign Office announces, and "order is expected shortly in Oaxaca and on the Isthmus." There is already a general undertone of pessimism about Mexico in general and the new rÉgime in particular.

The first delegation Madero received yesterday was the Society for Occult Sciences, followed by something even more tangibly intangible, the spiritualistic society. It makes one gasp. He will need all the help he can get to grapple with the situation here, but one has one's doubts about the spirits being consecutively and exclusively occupied with the destinies of Mexico, which seem to need the iron hand of flesh—and not in any glove, either.

Last night we dined at the new Chilian minister's, Hevia de Riquelme. Mr. Wilson was seven years in Chili as minister at the time SeÑor Riquelme held a Cabinet position, and has a great affection for him. They have just come from Japan. The dinner was very elaborate and expensive, and afterward we danced in the large hall and in and out of the big salons. Mrs. Wilson looked lovely in a white-lace dress with pale-blue touches, and seemed to reappear again as she might have been when she was the mother of babes in Chili, rather than of these grown sons in Mexico.

November 11th.

News this morning from the Isthmus is still more disquieting. Many buildings were dynamited in Juchitan, and many people were killed that way as well as by bullets and machetes. The wounded are being brought into San G. for treatment, as when some doctors of the White Cross arrived on the scene from Salina Cruz the Juchitecos refused to allow them to enter the town.

The splendid young Doctor Arguello was assassinated by the rebels while going the rounds of a hospital in Juchitan, where he was treating their wounded. His mother has lain moaning, "Mi hijo! mi hijo!" for twenty-four hours, and refusing all comfort. The new jefe, the tax-collector, and other "instruments of the law" were killed. This is how the inauguration of Madero was celebrated on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Fortunately San G. is loyal and could be a refuge for the peaceful inhabitants of other towns. General Merodia is there with four thousand troops.

November 14th.

Yesterday a large afternoon reception was held at the Foreign Office by Calero, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, and who has, incidentally, a great understanding of the United States. He presented his pretty wife formally to the Corps Diplomatique. She is delicate-looking, and life with Calero, with his ambitions and rather American strenuosity, will keep her going at quite a pace. The handsome rooms are having an unwonted vogue—the second time they are thrown open in a month! Professor Castillo, at the grand piano in the big room, vied with the police band stationed in the patio. Large American Beauty roses were everywhere (a delicate tribute, quiÉn sabe?), and we stood at small buffet tables.

I was between Riedl and Lie, and though less gorgeous to the outward eye, I was more en pays de connaissance than when last I refreshed myself in company with the Flowery Kingdom. The nice woman reporter from the Mexican Herald minutely inspected the women's clothes, as you will see by the clipping I send.

I must get ready for my luncheon to-day. I love to do the flowers myself, and a great solid bunch of forget-me-nots, a foot and a half across, in the big blue bowl, has been lifted onto the table by Elena and Cecilia. Bouquets of deepest purple pansies are at each place. The sun is flooding the patio, the flowers are blooming and shining—enfin all the delights of the tropics! It is not without reason that they have a lure. The luncheon is for the Riedls. The Lefaivres, von Hintze, Leclerq, and others are coming.

We tried the theater again last night. I had expected to go for the Spanish whenever N. had a free evening; but, really, I have not the physical strength, and last night we were thankful to get out of the boredom of the interminable entr'actes and the unbreathable devitalized air, which at this altitude has an exhausting effect unknown at sea level.

The apuntador read all the parts so loudly, now sometimes ahead, now sometimes behind the actors, that one couldn't decide which to follow, him or the artists, and we gave a sigh of relief as we sped out of the city toward Tlalpan, beloved of the viceroys.

An immense white moon, that seemed to lose its shape in its own flooding light, was rising over the valley. Not only the heavens, but the earth irradiated light, and we seemed to be motoring through a dully brilliant blue-whiteness. The night was dry, with no hint of mist, but still a milky ambience that gave an effect of gleaming wetness was over all.

Out of the earth came what seemed to me the psychic miasms of nameless but potent and persistent races. The Ajusco hills, for reasons known to themselves, were dead-black masses as they jetted into the sky, but their outlines were scalloped with an indescribable embroidery of the same fluid whiteness. I felt a chill sort of magic envelop me, penetrating through the thickness of that long Viennese motor coat; I was even a little afraid with that nameless fear one sometimes has here. I think it is the unknown quantities. Everything seems to equal X.

November 20th.

Reyes has been arrested at San Antonio by a United States marshal, charged with violating the neutrality laws. He was doing only what Madero did, but what is sauce for the gander isn't sauce for the goose. Diaz had his Madero, Madero his Reyes. How easy it would have been to have made a friend of Reyes, who was the idol of the army!

Madero now talks about crushing all revolutionary movements with an iron hand; but his hand, alas! has no likeness to iron or anything that can crush. It appears that Madero and Reyes made a pact according to which each was to have a free hand at the presidential nomination. But the Maderistas either got nervous or impatient, or did not want to take chances, and Reyes was persecuted and threatened until he resigned his commission in the army and left the country. The military element might have been conciliated with Reyes as Minister of War or in some other capacity after being defeated at the polls; but that would have been by far too reasonable a modus operandi for these climes.

Reyes found himself obliged to withdraw his candidature a few days before the election of Madero, and left the country as speedily as he could, among other things giving the New York Sun a chance for a gorgeous alliterative sentence, "Rebellion, riot, and Reyes mar the calm of Madero's Mexico."

The Simons are very handsomely installed in a house on the Paseo, and have sent out cards for a series of dinners. We dined there last night. Simon, it appears, is a banking genius of incorruptible probity—a second Limantour. They have what few here possess, a French chef, imported specially. Besides several diplomats, there were some Frenchmen whom I had not met, Armand Delille,[23] a banker, and an agreeable man, Parmentier.[24] In the drawing-room are many photographs relating to the Simons' Belgrade Étape, an interesting one of Pasitch's clever old face, the Serbian Crown Prince, the old King, Countess Forgasch, and others, who struck the Balkan note.

The first reception at Chapultepec, where the Maderos have taken up permanent habitation, is to be held on Friday.

November 24th.

Last night there was a brilliant dinner at the Embassy in honor of Calero, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife. I inclose a clipping. Mrs. W. looked very handsome in a white-lace gown with gold-wheat embroideries.

Madame Lefaivre had on a gray gown with her nice diamonds, and a beautiful old lace scarf about her shoulders. Baroness Riedl wore a clinging yellow dress with pearl fringe, and all her war-paint in the shape of her pearls and diamonds. After dinner we sat around the big, glass-inclosed patio which forms the center of the house.

I had a little talk with Calero. He is astonishingly clever. His mind reflects a perfectly clear mental image of the facts that come before it, and in any argument he is straight to the point. For the rest, it is terra incognita to me, though doubtless the land is perfectly charted with the roads so necessary for arriving at Latin-American ends (and not unnecessary to successful politicians anywhere).

Side-lights on the Juchitan troubles continue most interesting and instructive. Che GÓmez, the man who stirred up the apparently quite-ready inhabitants, is part Indian, part negro ("zambo" as this special mÉlange is called), and had set his heart on remaining jefe polÍtico of the turbulent town. When he began a similar agitation some years ago, Diaz wisely kicked him "up-stairs" by sending him in that capacity to some small place in Lower California. Now he is back, making things lively.

What remains of the Federal authorities, notaries, banking agents, industrials, et al., are still cooped up in the barracks there, or hiding in the woods and distant ranches. The situation was tragic till the long-looked-for Maderista troops arrived—a motley crowd, boys strapped to guns larger than themselves predominating over the rurales mounted on scrawny little crow-baits, looking like bandits in comic opera. They were accompanied by their womenkind, of course, and wandered aimlessly about. It was such a farce that even the natives laughed.

Che GÓmez is said to be supported by some sort of powerful influence, and his forces directed by some one having knowledge of military tactics. The dove of Madero's new peace is evidently not hovering over that portion of Mexico. The unrest is like an epidemic.

I must now get into the black-velvet dress to go to the first reception of the new rÉgime at Chapultepec.

November 24th, evening.

Madero's expression this afternoon was extraordinary. There was a kind of illumination of the plain, indefinite features, and he seemed scarcely to be walking with the sons of men. He had a smile which, without being fixed, was always there, and he talked a great deal, and quite freely, to various receptive plenipotentiaries.

Madame Madero was simple and dignified, but under it all I fancy something passionate and resolute. The diplomats were out in force, but there was very little else to the reception. A few unlabeled outlying Mexican nondescripts came, and some of the Cabinet ministers. Carmona, chef du protocole, and Nervo, the Second Introducer of Ambassadors, did what they could; but it was only too apparent that various essential elements of the national body-politic were lacking.

Madame Madero had on some sort of somber brocade with a hint of jewel sparkling in her lace jabot, and received in the big Sala de los Embajadores. After greeting her, however, we went out to the terrace, where such wonders were going on in the heavens that man for the moment seemed indeed dust. Great bodies of clouds in the form of a vast rose-colored throng, which Madero ought properly to have been with, were taking their way across the western sky, and purple shadows began to come up from the valley, enveloping the city as we watched what I can only call the "orb of day" disappear behind the hills. Madero strikes me as being rather a type apart, not specially Mexican, but such a type as appears in strange moments of the history of the nation to which it belongs.

November 25th.

Waiting for lunch after a most delightful morning in the park with Baroness R. and the French and Belgian ministers. I don't know if it was Marina's[25] spirit, which, according to the Indian tradition, still slips among the cypresses, or other unrecorded ghosts; but as we walked through the Calzada de los Poetas and los FilÓsofos, the matchless sun filtering through the branches of the old ahuehuetes, their bronzy hue the only sign of winter one can note here, we all succumbed to some enchantment.

There is a moss-hung cypress near one of the little lakes, called the Arbol de Moctezuma. It, with the Noche Triste tree, witnessed the fall of the Aztec Empire. There still remains an old inscription on a walled-in spring, marking the terminus of the Aztec aqueduct which brought drinking-water to Montezuma's capital from Chapultepec. The inscription, which I have sometimes dallied by, says the aqueduct was renovated in 1571 by the fourth viceroy. It faces the dustiest of tramway lines now, but one is thankful for any writing on any wall that gives a clue to the past.

Near the great tree is "Montezuma's Bath," where the water still bubbles up, only now the sprucest and most modern of flower-beds encircle it. This is the special haunt of Marina, but it is said that when an Indian has seen her at the ahuehuete pond he himself is seen no more.

We sauntered about for a while listening to the music, and then the gentlemen proposed rowing Baroness R. and myself about in the tiny boats that are for hire. Once out from under the trees, one became modern and completely objective, and Mr. Lefaivre and I discussed European diplomatic appointments of his and my governments as we rowed about on the shallow, artificial lakes under the hottest of suns, between the made lands of the new section of the park.

But every time we passed under the little bridge into the dimness of the narrow, tree-and-vine-grown banks of the little stream leading from two sides of the duck-pond, even though the band played a waltz from "The Balkan Princess," and a selection of "Lohengrin," and children were shouting and motors coming and going, that magic fell upon us. I didn't know if it were Aztec or Spanish ghosts, or spirits of the heroes of 1847, who assailed me.

One thing is sure. Those old ahuehuetes keep everything that was ever confided to them and trap the unwary with it. At this season, too, one begins to see familiar migratory birds come to pass the cold season in Mexico, recalling with a note of homesickness the distant land of one's birth. A "ruby-crowned kinglet" was perched on a low branch by the water—and some kind of a "warbler" was warbling New England lays all over the ancient park.

November 30th.

Zapata has just given some more building material to the new republic, in the shape of what he calls El Plan de Ayala, of the date of November 25th, written for him by one of the Vasquez GÓmez brothers. To our surprise, the brilliant editor of La Prensa has spoken not unfavorably of it.

I don't know if it is bowing to the inevitable, or expediency, that makes him advocate the use of the aforesaid material, which provides for the division of the lands of the state of Morelos, the only state in which, for climatic reasons (not political), the distribution of land could be undertaken without installing gigantic irrigation processes impossible for the Indians.

All through Mexican history revolutionary leaders have launched these Plans.

Iturbide published the Plan de Iguala, February 24, 1823, known as Las Tres GarantÍas, Porfirio Diaz the Plan de Noria, 1869; Madero's Plan de San Luis PotosÍ is what we are now living and breathing (and sometimes panting) by.[26]