ship that he valued more than food, was a great satisfaction
to him. Often we all repaired together to Simoneau's little
restaurant, where we were served meals that were a rare combination of
French and Spanish cookery, for our host's wife, Dona Martina, was a
native of Miraflores, in Lower California, and was skilled in the
preparation of the _tamales_[13] and _carne con chile_[14] of the
Southwest. It has always seemed to me that in the oft-told story of
the friendship between Jules Simoneau and Robert Louis Stevenson but
scant justice has been done to that uncommonly fine woman Dona
Martina, who, no doubt, had her part in caring for the writer when he
lay so ill in Monterey. Perhaps more often than not it was her kind
and skilful hand that prepared the broth and smoothed the pillow for
Don Roberto Luis, as she called him; and though she had but little
book knowledge, she was, in her native good sense, her well-chosen
language, and the dignity and courtesy of her manners, what people
call a "born lady." Mrs. Stevenson was profoundly grateful to Jules
Simoneau for his early kindness to her husband, and had a sincere
admiration for his wife as well. When he fell into straitened
circumstances in his old age, she went to his rescue and provided him
with a comfortable living during his last years. When he died she
followed him to his last resting-place, and afterwards erected a
suitable monument to mark it, only stipulating that the name of Dona
Martina should also be placed upon it, she having died some time
before him.

[Footnote 13: _Tamales_, perhaps the most famous
culinary product of the Southwest, were probably of
Indian origin. Their construction is too complicated to
explain here, further than to say that they are made of
corn-meal and chopped meat rolled in corn-husks and
boiled.]

[Footnote 14: _Carne con chile_ (meat with chile) is
what its name indicates, a stew of meat and red
peppers.]

In the Senorita Bonifacio's garden, where we spent much of our time,
there was a riot of flowers--rich yellow masses of enormous
cloth-of-gold roses, delicate pink old-fashioned Castilian roses,
which the Senorita carefully gathered each year to make rose-pillows,
besides fuchsias as large as young trees, and a thousand other blooms
of incredible size and beauty. Loving them all, their little Spani