Yesterday was again Mr. Wilson's day, and very pleasant. The handsome rooms were filled with roses in their last blooming. The rains wash them out at this season, and indeed at any season they must be plucked at sunrise or they quickly fade at this altitude. The buffet was lavishly spread, Mrs. Wilson dedicated a becoming blue dress, just arrived from Brussels, and I had on what the Mexican Herald kindly called this morning an "exquisite creation of painted chiffon."
The first visitor was Madame de la Barra, with her sweet manner and amiable, unstudied expression, also freshly and Frenchily garbed. I think she would like to branch out and do some entertaining during their short and uncertain tenure. The great castle, with its ravishing terraces, its large spaces, calls for functions. Mrs. Bedford made affectionate inquiries for you. Many of the colleagues came, and many Americans. There was a pleasant coming and going all the afternoon. Mr. James Brown Potter and Mr. Butler, who lives with him, came in late, further enlivening things, as seems to be their wont, and last the ambassador and N., just in from Saturday golf, which, at this season, politically and from the point of view of weather, is a more than usually uncertain game.
The murder of three hundred and three Chinamen at Torreon has made a great row. We were surprised and faintly amused to learn that China demands an indemnity of one million from Mexico. Has Chinese life ever been so high? The whole thing was a horror, however. Terrible atrocities were committed by the troops under Emilio Madero. The Chinamen were mostly market-gardeners peacefully cultivating vegetables in gardens back of their little houses, through which they were hunted and shot down like so many rabbits. There are other horrors related of tying them to horses headed in different directions, of babies on bayonets, etc. It is a most regrettable little fling on the part of the "Liberating" Army. Madero, very averse to shedding blood, is said to be horrified at the occurrence.
It makes me sad to think that, after a century of blood, all is still before the Mexican people, who have left the seemingly solid land of the dictatorship and are headed straight for the mirage of an impossible equality.
June 14th.
Last night was the big dinner at the Italian Legation. Countess Massiglia is an American. I sat between Von Hintze, whom I like very much, and Mr. Brown, president of the National Railway. Dear Mrs. Harriman sent us a letter to him, saying we might need "sudden transportation."
Mr. B. is a power here, one of the twentieth-century conquerors and civilizers. Brains, energy, courage, have taken him far along his successful career, and, incidentally, helped to cover Mexico with railways. It was most interesting hearing at first hand how the curtain had been rung down on the Diaz epoch, for it was he who had arranged for, and been witness to, the tragic departure of Don Porfirio, in those dim, early hours of the 26th. A military train, in charge of some trusted general (Huerta), followed, escorting the illustrious chief from the earthly heights of destiny, in every sense of the word, down the declines of sorrow and old age, out to the great sea.
V
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.