N. came in a while ago with arrangements complete for the trip to Tehuantepec. A telegram from Aunt Laura last night says: "All quiet here again; so glad you are at last coming." It seems like a fairy-tale that I am off to San Gerónimo, that exotic memory of my childhood. I remember we called it San Ger_onímo_ instead of pronouncing it San Her_ó_nimo. How the letters used to come dropping in--and the presents! The red-leather-covered sandalwood box, with its brass nails; the strange, square, old Spanish silver coins, just chopped off, as one would a bit of dough, and stamped hot; the painted gourds, the idols and the bright bits of embroidery. N. has just been delegated to go to get an American out of jail, the third one this week. They are taken up for nothing; we are not popular here just now. Madame Madero's New-Year's reception for the _Corps Diplomatique_ was poorly attended and there was no enlivening touch in the way of refreshments and nothing in which to drink healths. The wife of the ---- minister asked the President for a _verre d'eau_ toward the end. He was very apologetic, pleasant, and modest, and said: "Oh, we don't know how to do these things." He seemed full of good intentions and hope for 1912--but alack! alack! never has it been seen that nobility alone is able to maintain its possessor! Elim is begging me to bring him a monkey when I come back. I hate to disappoint him--but do you see me traveling with anything belonging to that species? The trip is said to be magnificent--two nights and one day. I wish it were two days and one night. Aunt L. is thinking of me and preparing for me; I know what it means for some one of her own to penetrate to her fastness, or rather her jungle. Mr. Cummings has put the telegraph at N.'s and my disposal while I am away. I have not been outside the Federal district since I arrived, so content with the treasures of this matchless valley; but of course one easily gets the _Reisefieber_. I will write _en route_ to the "blazing tropics." Now, farewell. _January 4th_, Córdoba, _10 a.m._ We have just descended into a dew-drenched world. It is supposed to be the "dry season," _estación de secas_. A warm, wet, glistening air comes in at the window, and my furs are in the rack. I have been watching endless coffee-plantations with red berries shining among the foliage, and great tobacco-fields of broad, shiny leaves. Banana-trees grow close to the tracks, and everywhere are the most perishable of homes, built of what looks like nothing more solid than corn-stalks and dried leaves. Cordoba was founded early in the seventeenth century by a viceroy, who modestly called it after himself. Later.