Balls at the German Legation and at Madame Simon's—Necaxa—A strange, gorge-like world of heat and light—Mexican time-tables—The French trail

August 17th.

Unwonted festivities here. For two nights running we have "tripped the light fantastic." Night before last Madame Simon gave a big ball, and last night there was one at the German Legation. The dancing world was out in full swing, bumping into a varied assortment of wall-flowers, tropical and temperate.

Handsome favors and elaborate suppers at both these bailes de confianza, and the later it got, the wilder and more spirited became the music. I gave the coup de grÂce to the pink velvet Buda-Pesth court dress at von H.'s.

The Benoist d'Azy are here from Washington. It always adds to the gaiety of nations to have Étrangers de distinction make their appearance. They have all the interest of events. It isn't often the capital sees two smart balls, one after the other.

A long-expected box of suits and things from Peter Robinson's for Elim has just arrived. He didn't fancy trying on, and in the struggle asked me suddenly "Who was Jesus Christ's tailor?" I was a bit taken aback. I must say I had never put those words or ideas together.

When I recovered my mental activity, I told him that Jesus' Mother made his clothes for him, whereupon he answered: "These only came from London," and wouldn't lift his feet from the floor when I wanted him to try on some little trousers. He doubtless needed a spanking which he didn't get. Mama was feeling decidedly slack after two nights of dissipation at an altitude of nearly eight thousand feet. Madame Montessori says a psychological change comes over children at the age of six. I look forward to it.

Necaxa, State of Vera Cruz
August 23d.
Station of the Light and Power Company.

I have only time for a word. We arrived here at five-thirty, after a twelve-hour journey through indescribable beauty. We left the house in a clear dawn—Rieloff, the Seegers, Burnside, and myself—and all day have been winding through mountain passes, deep barrancas, with a sound of rushing waters, and great forests of pine-trees, red and white cedars, and delicate ferns almost as high, through which our little geared-locomotive would have seemed a pioneer had it not been for the sight of the delicate steel towers that support the wires of the Light and Power Company.

In the afternoon great masses of shifting light flooded broad valleys or stamped the heights with shining patches as the rain-clouds passed and repassed between brilliant bits of sunny heaven. We came as the guests of the Light and Power Company, and the manager and chief engineer, an Englishman, Mr. Cooper, met us and brought us to the club-house, very comfortable, according to Anglo-Saxon ideas, with easy-chairs, verandas, etc. After a bountiful repast, according to the same ideas, we walked about the little plateau, in an enchantment of changing lights, till night suddenly fell and everything was blotted out, and we bethought ourselves that beata solitudine was the only fitting finale to it all. We have planned a full morrow, which is near, so good night.

Sunday, 25th.

I did not write yesterday. In the morning Mr. Cooper took us down to the dynamos, reached by a cog-railway, through a great, dark tunnel-like incline with a bright speck of light at the far end. We issued out of the cool dimness to find ourselves in a strange gorge-like world of heat and light, with a great mass of falling water, the distant edge of the waterfall outlined against a high, shining heaven; against it, again, thousands of small, brilliant blue butterflies, and on all sides the most gorgeous plants and trees. There was an effect of some circle of Paradise, and something mysterious and magic in the very practicality of it all, when one thinks that these falls, nearly six hundred feet high—and a hundred kilometers from Mexico City—supply the light and motor power of the town.

Doctor Pearson is the genius who controls it all, and his name is breathed with awe at Necaxa.[59] As we stood looking up at the falling waters, bright birds and heavy scents about us, "the white man is lord and king of it all," I kept saying to myself.

To-day has been still fuller. In the afternoon we visited the great dam that is just being finished to provide an immense storage reservoir against the dry season. Water is as precious as gold in Mexico, and in many places scarcer.

Some one remarked that there seemed to be little or no maÑana about it, and Mr. C. told the story of one of his first experiences in Mexico, when he was still under the spell of the time-table.

He was waiting at a station where the only passenger-train was scheduled to pass every day at 9 A.M. He arrived at the station a few minutes before nine, to see the train just disappearing. On complaining to the jefe de estaciÓn about this running ahead of time, he received the bland response that it was yesterday's train that had just passed out and there was every reason to suppose that the train of to-day would be delayed, perhaps as long! He cooled his heels till the next dawn. But Necaxa wasn't built at a cost of a hundred million pesos on that principle, he added.

We had started out after breakfast to explore the "French trail"—a son of Gaul was once owner of Necaxa—plunging perpendicularly over the side of the little plateau, to find ourselves on the most romantic of footpaths, formerly the only road through the gorgeous wilderness.

It got hotter and hotter as we descended, and though Rieloff kept insisting that, technically, we were not yet in Tierra Caliente, all its abundancies seemed to surround us: giant ferns, ebony and rosewood trees, lovely orchids hanging from high branches, convolvuli of all colors; and under our feet mosses, by the yard, of rare and lovely fabric, each patch holding a world of tiny forms and tints. I started to follow one bit of morning-glory vine, but was obliged to give it up. I could nor bear to break it, and it would have led me, like an endless thread, through a labyrinth of sarsaparilla, myrtle, and fern.

The brightest of birds and butterflies were flying about—the sort of things one finds under glass in northern museums—and a huge, scarlet flower of the hibiscus type was everywhere splashed over the green.

Here and there an Indian appeared from quiÉn sabe where. It was all his and yet not his.

We came up in the cool dimness of the cog-railway, and after cold douches and luncheon, enlivened with entomological discussions (that lovely wilderness is alive with invisible biting specimens), we went with Mr. Cooper to the reservoir.

We have spent the evening mostly meeting the officials of the company and playing bridge. (!) Though it was the least noblesse oblige allowed, it seemed a lot after the long, full day—on paie ses plaisirs....

However, they were all so nice and so pleased to see people from the outside world that, once in our "bridge stride," it wasn't so hard. Rieloff, who hates cards, after a while went to the piano, bursting into "Du meiner Seele schÖnster Traum"—following it up with the "Moonlight Sonata"; so, in the end, we found ourselves sitting in a dimly-lighted room, with Beethoven floating out on the soft Indian night—and all was well.

I am dead with sleep, and early to-morrow we depart.

42 Calle Humboldt,
August 26th, late evening.

We were awakened at 5.30 in a dawn of such exceeding beauty that, as I stepped out into it, I was tempted to fall upon my knees rather than hurry to our little train. On one side were the hills, so veiled in splendors of filmy pearls and blues and pinks that their forms could only be imagined; on the other was an abyss of gold and rose and sapphire into which our train was to plunge.

All day long we went from glory to glory; but I got home to find that something human and dreadful had happened in my absence: Little Emma C., playing over the roof with Laurita and Elim, escaped for one unexplained second from Gabrielle—fell from it to the stone patio—her fall, for an instant, broken by a balcony railing.

I hurried to her mother's. The child is alive, but dreadfully injured, and, it is feared, for life. Nature was too beautiful at Necaxa not to exact some sort of toll from those admitted to it. I am dreadfully upset.