The government is very cheerful, full of smiles at the progress of the Federal troops under General Huerta, who have wiped out, in much blood, the blot on the Federal escutcheon; for Rellano, lost by Gonzalez Sala, is now retaken by Huerta. Orozco, in his retreat, is destroying railways and bridges, and there will be big bills for some one to foot. Huerta, it appears, has shown generalship of a high order. But I have been under gray skies, following the great procession that carried Frederick the Seventh to his last resting-place. The three Scandinavian kings, Gustavus of Sweden, Haakon of Norway, and the new ruler and son, all so tall, like vikings of old, walked side by side, heading the procession, the first meeting of the three since the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905. Queen Alexandra, the Dowager Empress of Russia, and King George of Greece,[50] always so agreeable, were there to mourn their brother, and many another of the familiar figures on the Copenhagen screen of memory. It was a breaking up of family ties to them--to the world, only a new king of Denmark. You remember that cold, bright December day, with its sparkling snow, and frosty, glistening trees, when we went to Roskilde to see the ancient church where the kings of Denmark sleep their last sleep? And now, on a May morning, to the strains of the great organ, that captain and that king departs whose friendship I had. Again, peace to his soul!... Several days ago I discovered at an old bookshop at the Calle del Reloj, off the Zócalo, a first edition of Madame Calderón de la Barca's book, 1843, Boston, decidedly worn as to its leather binding, but in excellent condition otherwise--unfaded print on unyellowed paper. I wish she could cast that pleasant objective eye of hers on my Mexico; I believe she would recognize the political housekeeping! Around about the Zócalo are many second-hand shops; also in the Volador old books are to be found. But they are mostly yellowed manuscript--copies of the accounts of the _administradores_ on the old Spanish estates, books on medicines and herbs, records of lawyers' fees, and the like. Generally the title-pages are missing, and always all the engravings. I have a copy of _Periquillo Sarniento_, the "Gil Blas" of Mexico, but it is difficult reading for a foreigner, full of satiric allusions to political events of the period and to purely local conditions. It was published in Havana in 1816, when the author, De Lizardi, _El Pensador Mexicano_, was there to escape the consequences of his satiric jibes. He wrote, curiously enough, another book (_La Quijotita_) dealing with the higher education of women, which, in Mexico, has scarcely been repeated in the hundred years. _May 28th._ I wonder, as I write, if you are walking the green fields of Rankweil; my heart accompanies you.