The culmination of the centennial ceremonies was on the night of the 15th, just a little while before midnight. By half past ten o’clock the immense Plaza, which faces the National Palace, was filled with an immense crowd of Mexican dignitaries, distinguished foreigners and the population of the city. It was a mass of living, breathing, expectant humanity. The many coloured lights formed veritable rainbows of colour, and this added an additional attraction to the teeming, seething crowd. The door leading to the central balcony on the front of the National Palace opened, and President Diaz appeared. An intense stillness fell upon the crowd. In his right hand the President carried the national flag of Mexico, and immediately on his appearance the red, white and green lamps (the national colours) surrounding the old bell with which Hidalgo first sounded the call to liberty, and which has found a permanent resting place here, flashed into a radiant glow. As the strains of the national anthem floated out on the breeze, the President waved his flag, rang the bell and shouted “Viva Mexico!” The great crowd went wild with excitement. The cry of “Viva Mexico!” was taken up by the crowd near to the President, and then by those farther away, until the great shout might have been heard all over the capital. The bells of the grand old cathedral pealed forth their loudest tones, the factory whistles shrieked, sky-rockets were sent up in the air and every noise-making device was turned loose. Pandemonium reigned. “Viva Diaz!” and “Viva el Presidente!” were mingled with the cry of “Viva Mexico!” In the light of later events this wonderful celebration seems to have been a sham, or at least only on the surface. At that time a political volcano was simmering all over the republic, and was just ready to break forth into violent eruption. Diaz had already been re-elected for the eighth term, but the inauguration was not to take place until the fifth of December. In November the first outbreaks against the civil authorities occurred. An abortive rising occurred in Puebla in which blood was shed. Armed bodies appeared in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, in the northwestern part of the republic. These bodies attacked the outlying _haciendas_, robbed the owners of horses and foraged at will to secure supplies for themselves and their horses. The country in which these outbreaks occurred is ideal for the guerilla warfare that followed. Both of those states are mountainous and thinly settled, so that it was comparatively easy for even a small band of armed men to make a great deal of trouble and escape from a much larger force that might attempt to pursue them.