A cook comes to-day, highly recommended, but I can see just the sort of things she will turn out, if left to herself--fried bananas, goat stew, etc. She comes accompanied by her little girl of three. One of the washerwomen also has a child with her, and there are tentative remarks from other quarters regarding offspring. But the house is so big that a few indwellers, more or less, make no difference; and I am not sorry, in these uncertain times, to harbor a few bright-eyed, soft-skinned, silent brown babies under my roof. The handsome Indian maid who came to the city from her _pueblo_, because her stepfather was too attentive, has gone. She simply vanished; but as the other servants, on inquiry, don’t seem worried, I suppose it is all right. They have a way of leaving after they get their month’s wages, though their departure is generally preceded by some such formality as declaring that their grandmother is dead, or their aunt ill. Where they go is a mystery. To-morrow we lunch at the Simon’s. He is the clever French _Inspecteur des Finances_ of the Banco Nacional. They have a handsome house in the Paseo, an excellent French _chef_, and are most hospitable. She is witty and cultivated; we sometimes call her “_la belle cuisinière_.” In the evening we dine with Rieloff, the musical German consul-general, who will serve Beethoven and Bach very beautifully, after dinner. I am very little disposed to go out in the evening here, and N. is nearly always busy with despatches until a late hour. There is something in the air, nearly 8,000 feet in the tropics, which discourages night life, even in normal times, and _tertulias_[2] of any kind are infrequent. At ten the streets are deserted and the Mexicans all under some sort of cover. Even in the big houses they take the most abstemious of evening meals, and go to bed early, to be ready for the exceeding beauty of the early morning. All the foreigners here have nerves. What would be peaceful, dove-like households at sea-level, become scenes of breakage of all description at this altitude, and all sorts of studies might be made on the subject of “air pressure” on the life of man and woman. There is not the accustomed amount of oxygen in the air and, with all the burning-up processes of the body lessened, there is an appalling strain on the nerves. Hence many tears! I wonder if you ever got the book and letter I sent you from the boat from Santander. I gave them, with ample postage and a fat tip, to an attractive, barefooted, proud-looking Spaniard, who had brought a letter on board for some one. I told him they were for _mi madre_. With a most courtly bow, hat in one hand, the other on his heart, he assured me that he would attend to the matter as if it were for his _own_ mother! _Pues quién sabe?_ _October 24th._