of an innkeeper: student for priesthood, law student,
revolutionist, soldier, statesman, and President by turns. Diaz has
also Indian blood in his veins, upon the maternal side. After the
events connected with the fall of the Empire the ambitions of Diaz
found outlet in the disaffections against Lerdo's government. It was
hardly to be expected that the ambitions and jealousies of the times
could yet give way to consolidation for national interests and desire
for peace and development; and the only hope for the country was in the
advent of a strong man and a strong system, such as, under better
auspices, the monarchical _regime_ might have afforded. The strong man
appeared in the very antithesis of monarchy--Porfirio Diaz; and the
autocratic _regime_--almost monarchical except in name--in the
military-civil government which followed. Good, indeed, seemed to
proceed out of evil, and the autocratic President of Mexico came
through chaos to power as a revolutionist himself, by the edge of the
sword, shedding his own countrymen's blood, and borne on the crest of
an insurrectionary wave. Yet there was more behind the fortunes and
character of Diaz than mere selfish ambition or the habit of a
disorderly soldier-spirit. He had early conceived Liberal views against
clerical domination, and his earlier career showed loftier aspirations
than those of the ordinary tawdry revolutionist of the times, who,
under the name of liberty, indulged too often personal or party licence
against law, decency, and humanity. Diaz, after the revolution, assumed
executive power in November, 1876, and after a brief interval took the
oath and Presidential chair on May 5, 1877. The term of President
Gonzalez followed, and during this measures of civil progress were
inaugurated. Diplomatic relations were reopened with Great Britain, and
a beginning made to adjust the debt with the foreign bond-holders. The
Mexican Central Railway, linking the Republic with its neighbour the
United States, was inaugurated, and was an important factor in the
political settling-down of the country.

Diaz was re-elected to the Presidency for December 1, 1884. From that
period until the present day he has held the office continuously--seven
Presidential terms--a _regime_ which has partaken more of the nature of
a hereditary sovereignty than of an elective post. It is to be
recollected, however, that in all Spanish-American countries--and
Mexico has been no exception--intimid