5th April (Sunday).—Mr Zorn, or Don Pablo as he is called here, Her Majesty’s acting Vice-Consul, is a quaint and most good-natured little man—a Prussian by birth. He is overwhelmed by the sudden importance he has acquired from his office, and by the amount of work (for which he gets no pay) entailed by it,—the office of British Consul having been a comparative sinecure before the war.
Mr Behnsen is head of the firm. The principal place of business is at San Luis Potosi, a considerable city in the interior of Mexico. All these foreign merchants complain bitterly of the persecutions and extortion they have to endure from the Government, which are, doubtless, most annoying; but nevertheless they appear to fatten on the Mexican soil.
I crossed to Brownsville to see General Bee, but he had not returned from Boca del Rio.
I dined with Mr Oetling. We were about fourteen at dinner, principally Germans, a very merry party. Mr Oetling is supposed to have made a million of dollars for his firm, by bold cotton speculations, since the war.
“We all went to the theatre afterwards. The piece was an attack upon the French and upon Southern institutions.
