I have a deep thrill of excitement when I think of the Mexico in revolution that we are nearing, steaming so quickly to the center of it all. The victories, the defeats, the glories, the abasements, vanishings, and destructions we may witness, all that troubled magnetic unknown awaiting us! In looking over the newspaper in Mrs. Jackson's cool, dim, vast boudoir we saw that the Madero revolution is taking on great proportions. Old things and new wrestling for supremacy, "and the heavens above them all." The ---- are going on to Mexico City to "_chercher fortune_." He is the brother of the tomato catsup bathtub episode, as I gathered, when he spoke of a brother having been in Washington. He quite frankly tells people that he himself has had bad luck, as on the way to Mexico he had stopped at Monte Carlo, and of the hundred thousand francs raised to begin life again in the tropics he had lost eighty thousand at the tables. Very sad! We land at Vera Cruz about noon, according to Captain Smith, and can take a night train (thirteen hours) up to Mexico City. I had some thought of persuading N. to wait over, that we might make the famous journey by daylight. But the train leaves at 6 A.M., which would mean a night in Vera Cruz, and what I hear about the hotels is not confidence-inspiring. I have a feeling of being completely at the mercy of the unknown and the only partially controllable--unknown microbes, unknown humanities, unknown everything; and there is the blue-eyed boy, so we will probably let the scenery enjoy itself. _Later, 3 p.m._ Sitting on deck in Vera Cruz harbor. To-day is a great national holiday, the 5th of May (when the French were defeated at Puebla), and things are not moving quickly, at any rate not in our direction. The health officials have not materialized. Somebody said it was a bad time to arrive, anyway, as they would be taking their afternoon naps. The only other visitor from foreign parts in the harbor is the _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_ lying against the white glaze of shore. An old Spanish fortress, San Juan Ulua, is near us--now used as a prison and most dreadful, I am told. But I keep thinking how, through the centuries, the vast, shining wealth of Mexico poured into Europe from this port. _Later._ The polite, vestless but _not_ coatless health officials have found us "clean," and we are now waiting for the next set--I think it is the port authorities--to finish _their_ naps.