XOCHIMILCO
Photograph by Ravell
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.