I.

THE PRESIDENT IN THE RECEPTION

ROOM.

We saw President Juarez for the first time in the fall of 1865. He was then temporarily established with his government in the town of El Paso, on the northern frontier of Chihuahua, and within almost a stone's throw of American soil. Fort Bliss, Texas, then recently reoccupied by the Union troops, was not more than ten minutes' distance from the Plaza of El Paso.

The prospects of the Mexican Republic were not then very bright; the treasury was almost exhausted, the government was barely on Mexican soil, and on the American side of the Rio Grande it was generally looked upon as a question of time when President Juarez would have to seek safety on our own side of the boundary. It is needless to say that he would have been received by the Americans of that region with right royal hospitality.

American sympathy and material aid were looked for, and Americans were very popular with all the followers of the Mexican president.

Shortly after the arrival of President Juarez and his cabinet in El Paso, we joined a party of American gentlemen who paid him a visit. The party comprised, we think, nearly all the Americans of any standing about El Paso. There were the American consul, the collector of customs, three or four army officers from Fort Bliss, some local civil

officials, and one or two leading busi

ness men.

President Juarez and his cabinet occupied a house on the Plaza-a large building constructed in the usual Mexican fashion. On announcing ourselves as a party of American citizens desirous of paying their respects to the chief of a sister republic, we were immediately ushered into a room where we found President Juarez with most of the members of his cabinet-notably his successor Señor Lerdo de Tejada, then Secretary of State, and Señor Yglésias, Secretary of the Treasury-now also named for the presidency-rather a sinecure office at the time.

We were presented in turn to the president by Señor Yglésias, the only person present attached to the president who spoke English. President Juarez spoke neither English nor French. He shook hands cordially with each of us, and expressed through Señor Yglésias the very great pleasure it gave him to receive our visit. We were sufficiently familiar with the Pueblo type to recognize Juarez immediately on entering.

President Juarez was low in stature, rather stout, but dignified, and at the same time easy in his manners. The Pueblo Indian was marked in every lineament of his face-the aquiline nose, the small bright black eyes, the straight cut mouth showing no trace of redness in the lips, the coalblack hair, the swarthy complexion. Yet he was, as it were, an Indian idealized; his forehead was high, capacious, and the light of intellectual

cultivation illuminated his face. He was dressed in plain black.

The secretary of state, Señor Lerdo de Tejada, is evidently, judged merely from externals, a man of great intellectual ability. His skin is as white as that of the fairest daughter of the Anglo-Saxon. A forehead, so high as to seem almost a monstrosity, and of a marble whiteness, towered above a face that gleamed with the glance of the eagle. Señor Yglésias was of a darker complexion than his colleague in the cabinet. He seemed to be in rather indifferent health. The expression of his face was remarkably gentle and pleasing. We have already said that he acted as interpreter. He spoke English with a very marked accent, but with great care and correctness. We happened to be seated next him on a sofa, President Juarez being on his right. He told us that he learned to speak English in the city of Chihuahua, and that he had never been a day in an English-speaking country. Notwithstanding that President Juarez did not speak English, and the necessity of an interpreter naturally causes some embarrassment, yet his manners were so pleasant and affable that he placed us at our ease at once. He spoke about our war, and asked with much interest about our great military leaders, Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. He seemed to feel some sympathy with Gen. McClellan. A very pleasant halfhour was spent in conversation on these and kindred subjects. It was at length interrupted by the entrance of a péon bearing a tray with quite a generous number of bottles of champagne on it.

We were invited to partake of the Green Seal. We stood around the table, President Juarez standing at the head. Toasts were drunk to the lasting friendship of the two North

American republics, to the independence of Mexico, etc. The péon, who was not a very bright specimen of his tribe, exerted himself to his utmost to open the bottles sufficiently fast. In his tremulous hurry he got within point-blank range of the president, and a peculiarly excited bottle going off prematurely, discharged about half its contents into the president's shirt-bosom. Juarez looked at the poor féonwhose swarthy face grew sickly pale, and who seemed about to sink to the ground with terror and confusion-. neither in sorrow nor in anger. He took no notice whatever of the incident, but went on talking cheerfully as before. Such an accident happening to most men would have been laughable in the extreme. It did not seem to us to place Juarez in a ludicrous position at all, his selfcommand was so perfect, his dignity so thoroughly preserved.

After all the patriotic toasts proper to the occasion had been drunk, we took our leave. The president again shook hands with us, again expressed, through Señor Yglésias, his gratification at meeting American citizens and officers, and hoped that he should receive further visits from

us.

We departed very greatly prepossessed in favor of the Mexican president. We agreed in thinking that there was a simplicity and honesty of purpose about him which made him the best man for the difficult position of chief magistrate of the struggling republic in her great hour of trial.

II.

THE PRESIDENT IN THE BALL-ROOM.

Some time after the visit just described, President Juarez gave a ball in honor of the anniversary of Mexi

can independence. We had the honor, in common with some other Americans, of receiving an invitation to the ball, which, of course, we accept ed.

There were four American ladies in our party-two the wives of infantry officers stationed at Fort Bliss, the post surgeon's wife, and the wife of one of the leading citizens of Franklin. We were all invited to pass the night-or such portion of it as would remain after the close of the ball-at the mansion of a lady, a native of El Paso, of American descent.

We were bestowed in three or four vehicles, and forded the Rio Grande successfully a little before dark. We found El Paso in festal array. The cathedral was covered with shining lamps from foundation to steeple. The Plaza was brilliantly illuminated, and crowds of both sexes were already assembling for the grand open-air baile of the profanum vulgus. Class lines of demarcation are very sharply drawn in El Paso, and the gente fina alone were admissible to the president's ball.

's,

We dined at the Señora Lwhere we had the pleasure of meeting several Mexican officers of high rank. Among them were General Ruiz, the Postmaster-General (another sinecurist just then), and other staff officers, whose names we have forgotten. A little son of one of the officers at Fort Bliss-a child of five or six, who spoke Spanish very well, having passed nearly all his little life in New Mexico, only remaining sufficiently long in New York to set all doubts at rest as to his being born in the Empire State-became a very great favorite with the

Mexican officers.

Between ten and eleven P.M. Our vehicles were again in requisition, and

away we went to the ball. It was given in the spacious house of a wealthy citizen, the front of which was brilliantly illuminated. A guard of Mexican soldiers was posted in front of the house, and lined the long hall leading to the ball-room. Their pieces were at order, and they saluted the chief officers by striking the butt of their muskets against the ground. They were dressed in gray jackets, like the undress of the New York National Guard, white cross belts, white trousers, and a leather cap, somewhat Hussar shape.

We had the honor of giving an arm to one of the four American ladies on entering. Arrived at the door of the ball-room, four white-vested and kid-gloved Mexican gentlemen offered an arm each to the four American ladies, bowing at and smiling most sweetly on us the while. At first, we were disposed to resist "the deep damnation of this taking off." The ladies hesitated and drew back. The situation would have become remarkably comic; but Don Juan Z-, well-known to all Americans who visit El Paso, seeing the critical state of affairs, came to us and whispered that it was the costumbre de pais-the custom of the country. We submitted, but, we fear, not with a good grace. By the way, we only saw our American ladies at a distance for the rest of the evening. The Mexican gentlemen took entire charge of them. Don Juan informed us that we were expected to take our revenge among the señoras and señoritas.

The ball-room was very tastefully arranged. The placeta, or open square in the centre of all Mexican houses, on which all the rooms in the building open, was roofed and floored for the ball-room. The window-curtains were hung outside the window of the house; mirrors, paintings, etc.,

were hung on the outer walls, making the illusion that you were inside the house instead of outside of it, complete. American and Mexican flags were festooned around the walls. The music, softly and sweetly played, was placed in a side room, entirely out of sight. No braying cornet flayed your ears, and no howling fiddler, calling out the figures from a position dominating everything and everybody, gave you an attaque de nerfs. The fiddlers would be heard, not seen. The waltz, the national dance of Mexico, was, of course, the terpsichorean pièce de resistance; but a fair number of quadrilles were sprinkled through the programme, in compliment to the Americans.

We have seen many balls in the Empire City-some given under "most fashionable auspices "—but we must in justice declare that we have seen none which surpassed the Mexican President's ball. There may have been more glare, more glitter, more diamonds, if you will, but there certainly was not more good taste, more elegance and refinement, more genuine good-breeding and gentlemanly and ladylike good-humor. There was no rushing, steam-engine fashion, the length of the ball-room; knocking couples to the right and left, and tearing dresses, without even an apology. The ladies were richly but not gaudily dressed, and made no barbaric display of golden ornaments, as their New Mexican sisters are wont to do on bailé occasions. The gentlemen-except the army officers -wore the traditional black dresscoat and pantaloons, with white vest and gloves, clothes and gloves fitting admirably, for the gente fina of El Paso got both from Paris. The army officers were, of course, in full uniform, the American uniform looking rather sombre compared with the red-leg top trousers, with broad gold

or silver stripes, and the magnificent gold-embroidered sashes of the Mexican general and field officers. By the way, the lowest officer in rank of the Mexicans in the ball-room was a colonel. The only captains and lieutenants admitted were the Americans. Juarez' son-"the image of his father "--though somewhat shorter in stature, in the undress uniform of a second lieutenant of artillery was in the vestibule with the guard.

The president, with his cabinet and staff, was already in the ballroom when we arrived. After being dispossessed of our fair companions, we were ushered to the portion of the room in which the president sat. We paid our respects in turn, and were kindly and cordially welcomed. Juarez was dressed in plain black, except his gloves, which, of course, were white.

The male portion of the American party then broke ranks, and spread themselves through the ball-room, enjoying themselves each after his fashion; some in the fascinating "see-saw" of the Spanish dance, others in the apartments off the ballroom where exhilaration of a different kind was provided.

We passed a very agreeable hour with Signor Prieto, a Mexican poet and orator of distinction. Signor Prieto was then known as the "Henry Clay" of Mexico. He spoke French very well. He told us with just pride that he considered the highest recognition his efforts had received was the translation of one of his poetical pieces by our American patriarch-poet, William Cullen Bryant.

Just before supper-time, an official came with President Juarez' compliments, to say that President Juarez and the members of his cabinet would take the American ladies in to supper, and requesting the American

gentlemen to take in Mexican ladies. We immediately sought our friend Don Juan T-, and begged him to find us some Mexican lady who could talk either English or French. He found compliance with our request impossible, but gave into our charge the Señora S, a magnificent beauty of the Spanish type, with coal-black hair and large lustrous black Juno-like eyes-fendus en amande. The other gentlemen of the American party were soon provided with supper partners, and we began our march for the supper-table, President Juarez taking in Mrs. Capt. O——; the secretary of state, Señor Lerdo de Tejada, Mrs. Capt. B-; the secretary of the treasury, Mrs. Dr. S; and the secretary of war, Mrs. Wof Texas. The first table was for the president and cabinet, with the American party. The supper was rather a solemn affair. It consisted of nine courses, though the courses seemed as like each other as railway stations on the plains. All seemed to be desiccated, and reminded us somewhat of what we had read about Chinese feasts. When a course was served to every guest, the President looked down the table to his right and bowed; he then looked to his left and bowed. Then, and not before, knives and forks were observed, and the guests attacked the viands. This repeated nine times was not calculated to impart gaiety to the repast. It was slow, but ended at last, and we retired in the same order in which we entered, making way for the ladies and gentlemen of the second table.

After the supper, President Juarez sat for over an hour with the American ladies, chatting pleasantly with them in the simplest Spanish phrases he could devise. Seeing him chat ting away and laughing gaily, no one could have imagined that he

had the cares of a tottering government with an empty treasury upon his shoulders. Capt. O

asked us to go out

with him and have a look at the great bronco, the public fandango, on the Plaza. As we passed out through the hall, the Mexican guard-now lying on their arms-jumped up and brought their muskets to the ground with a crash to salute our companion, much to his discomposure, as he wished to go out without attracting attention.

The great fandango was a sight worth seeing. A leviathan Spanish dance wound its way around and through the Plaza, filling to overflowing the market-place, the sidewalks, and the arcades. Swarthy Mexicans with immense sombreros, with cigarettes of corn-husks in their mouths, abandoned themselves to the swaying movements of the slow waltz, their dark-eyed partners-often partners in the cigarette as well as the dance-now moving with a graceful languor, now dashing out with wild and unrepressed vigor to the clattering of a thousand castanets.

Unusual gambling facilities were to be found everywhere, of course. Cake merchants, fried hot cakes in the open air, lemonade, vino del pais, fresh queso, fruits, puros, were to be had for the paying.

Having seen sufficient of the great unwashed fandango, we returned to the ball-room. Our companion was again the object of another demonstration of respect on the part of the guard. "I wish," said he, "those fellows would go to sleep; this begins to be unpleasant."

A waltz was in full gyration when we returned to the ball-room. We took chairs and sat near the door chatting. Suddenly we became aware that some one stood behind us, placing a hand on either chair.