Of these pleasant days in Cuernavaca she writes in a letter to her daughter:
"I have a little plant from the garden where Carlota lived, which I think is a climbing syringa. We go round nearly every evening to the palace built by Cortés, in one room of which he strangled one of his mistresses.... I had always supposed Maximilian to be a most exemplary person, but he seems to have lived in a palace some three miles from here with a beautiful Mexican girl, while poor Carlota was left alone in town in the Borda Gardens.... Everybody goes barefoot here, though all dressed up otherwise, and everybody wears the rebozo.[71] This morning I killed a scorpion on the wall alongside the bed, and the other day I also assisted in the killing of a tremendous tarantula in the middle of the road. We stood far off and threw stones at it. None of mine hit the mark, but I threw like mad.... I hope you were not frightened by the news of the earthquake here. We got a good shake but no harm done. Just a little south of us there has been terrible damage—a whole town destroyed and people killed. Here all the people ran into the streets, and kneeling, held out their hands towards the churches that contain their miraculous images.... We have had a 'blessing of the animals' at the cathedral, where cats, dogs, eagles, doves, cocks and hens, horses, colts, donkeys, cows and bulls, dyed every color of the rainbow and wearing wreaths of artificial flowers round their necks, were brought to receive this sacrament. I wanted to take Burney [her little Scotch terrier], but feared his getting some contagion, so gave it up, and now my Burney has forever lost the chance of becoming a holy, blessed dog.... The native people here are very abject, and seem almost entirely without intellect; yet they are the only servants to be had unless one sends to California, and they make life a desperate business. The only spirit I have seen in any of them was to-day, when a native policeman tried to get up a fight between his own huge dog and my little Burney. Of course Burney the valiant was ready for the fray and would probably have disposed of the big dog had I not run up, closing and clubbing my parasol as I came. The policeman thought I was going to strike him, and for one second stood up to me fiercely, saying 'No Señorita! No Señorita!' Then his knees suddenly gave way and he and his dog and his friend who was standing by to see fair play utterly collapsed."
Steeped as the country was in old tradition, and far removed as it seemed from all knowledge of the outside world, the name of Robert Louis Stevenson had penetrated to its inmost recesses, and its people were pleased to bestow honour upon his widow. Writing of this she says: "I want to tell you that at every little lost place on the road I have received extra attention because of my name. In this house I have the best room, the landlord himself giving it up to me. I hope Louis knows this."
The little plant of which she spoke, the climbing syringa, which was given to her as a special favour by the man in charge of the Borda Gardens, reached San Francisco in good condition and took most kindly to its new home. Slips of it were given to friends, and its sweet flowers, reminiscent of the ill-fated queen who once breathed their perfume, now scent the air in more than one garden round San Francisco Bay.
It was not long after her return from this trip to Mexico that Mrs. Stevenson began to be troubled with a bronchial affection that increased as she advanced in years and made it necessary for her to seek a frequent change from the cool climate of San Francisco. In November of 1904 a severe cough from which she was suffering led her southward. This time she was accompanied by Salisbury Field, the son of her old friend and schoolmate of Indiana days, Sarah Hubbard Field. Mr. Field had now become a member of Mrs. Stevenson's household, and at a later date married her daughter, Isobel Osbourne Strong.
Arriving at La Jolla by the sea, a most picturesque spot on the southern coast of California, they were disappointed in not finding it as warm as they had expected, so it was decided to go further south. In the course of their inquiries at San Diego they met a Western miner named George Brown, who told them stories of a lonely desert island off the coast of Lower California, where he was about to open a copper-mine for the company for which he was general manager. The more he talked of this lonesome isle and of how barren and desolate it was the more Mrs. Stevenson was fascinated with it, and when he finally invited them, in true Western fashion, to accompany him thither, she joyfully accepted. In the early part of January she took passage with her little party, consisting of herself, Mr. Field, and her maid, on the small steamer St. Denis, which was sailing from San Diego and making port at Ensenada and San Quintin on the way to Cedros Island.
At the island the Stevenson party was offered the large company house of ten rooms by Mr. Brown, but preferred to live in a little whitewashed cottage that stood on the beach. Except for the Mexican families of the mine workmen there were no women on the island besides Mrs. Stevenson and her maid. The small circle of Americans soon became intimately acquainted, for the lack of other society and interests naturally drew them close together. Besides George Brown, Clarence Beall, and Doctor Chamberlain, the company doctor, there was only a queer old character known as "Chips," a stranded sea carpenter who was employed to build lighters on the beach.
Mrs. Stevenson had all of Kipling's fondness for mining men, engineers—all that great class of workers, in fact, who harness the elements of earth and air and bend them to man's will—and she was very happy on this lonely island with no society outside of her own party but that of the few employed at the mine. Between her and Mr. Beall, a young mining engineer employed on the island, a strong and lasting bond of friendship was established from the moment of their first meeting, when she saw him wet and cold from a hard day of loading ship through the surf and insisted on "mothering" him to the extent of seeing that he had dry clothing and other comforts. And, although the difference between the green tropic isle beyond the sunset which lay enshrined in her memory and this barren cactus-grown pile of volcanic rocks was immeasurable, yet the one, in its peace, its soft sweet air, and the near presence of the murmuring sea, called back the other.
When, after three pleasant, peaceful months, the time came for her departure, there was general sorrow on the island, where it may well be imagined that her presence had greatly lightened the tedium of existence for its lonely dwellers. "To this day," writes Doctor Chamberlain, "whenever I pick up one of Mr. Stevenson's novels, my first thoughts are always of his wife and our days at Cedros Island."
While in Ensenada on the return trip Mrs. Stevenson heard of a ranch for sale there, and after looking at it decided to purchase it. The place, known as El Sausal,[72] lies on the very edge of the great Pacific, and has a magnificent beach. The climate is as nearly perfect as a climate can be, and Mrs. Stevenson often said that if the world ever learned of the magic healing in that country there would be a great rush to the peninsula, so long despised as a hopeless desert.