April 18th. 4:30 P.M.
No news as yet from Washington. I have just returned after lunching at the Russian minister’s. Everything was very soigné, as it always is, with blinis and delicious caviar and all sorts of good things. I feel as if I had eaten the Legation instead of at it. One has so little appetite at eight thousand feet above sea-level. There were von Hintze, Kanya, Marie Simon, in one of her smart Drecoll dresses, and myself. They all think the situation in the south is very bad, but I am no more to be scared by the cry of Zapatistas, having heard it ever since I first put foot in Mexico.
The Mexican Herald remarks this morning (dealing with the situation in glittering generalities) that “When each party to an agreement gets the idea that the other side is going to back down, it is certainly trying to the patience of an Irish peacemaker.”
One of the great dust-storms of the end of the dry season is on us to-day; all the color is gone out of the air, which has become opaque, gritty, non-refracting.