A dinner here last night. Beautiful, ragged, yellow chrysanthemums, much smaller than ours, decorated the table and drawing-room. The German and Russian ministers, Penn Cresson, the McLarens, and others were the guests. A letter comes from Demidoff. He is leaving Paris to join Sofka, who is now in Russia with her people. They go together to Taguil in the Ural Mountains, to inspect their platinum mines. He is just back from a trip to the Spanish Pyrenees with Célestin after chamois, which latter he says don't compare with their Transylvanian cousins. He rather loftily asks if N. enjoys most parrot-shooting or monkey-stalking. His letter is interlarded with little questions as to when we are going to annex the country. He had been in charge for a month and had the excitement of a change of government and the Agadir incident during that time. At the Embassy, it would seem, they are one big, jolly family. It made me quite homesick. He winds up with a postscript, saying he had just finished _The New Machiavelli_. He considers it a _chef d'œuvre_, but I read it only a few months ago, and no book whose atmosphere and intrigue you forget in as short a time is great. I think of you and Sofka, standing in the station, as the train rolled out from Paris, that rainy Sunday, to Cherbourg, our first _étape_ to the tropics. _August 17th._ All quiet in Mexico City, but we understand that to-day a battle is taking place at Cuernavaca between Zapata, our "foremost" brigand, with three thousand troops, and the Federals. Those who know tell me that Zapata is atavistic in type, desirous of Mexico for the Indians, _à la_ a celebrated Indian chief of the Sierras de Alica. "Mexico for the Indians" really means a sponging out of everything between us and Montezuma, and decidedly "gives to think." A few days ago, dining at Silvain's, the French restaurant in vogue here, we saw a General Huerta who seemed _muy hombre_, a broad-shouldered, flat-faced, restless-eyed Indian with big glasses, rather impressive, who was returning to Morelos to fight Zapata. I don't know if this was his battle or not. The Russian minister is going on leave. I gave him a little green jade god, to take to Demidoff, sworn to me, in the name of various deities, to be what it appears to be, authentic. He is not handsome, but he has a delightful, smooth "feel" and something chic about him, in his own little Aztec way. _August 18th._