Carmel Meadows

This is Carmel Meadows Beach, at the mouth of the Carmel River.  It’s main legendary claims to fame are twofold, one, that Robert Louis Stevenson wandered these beaches while he was recovering from his latest bout of ill health.  He’d taken up residence (collapsed) in Monterey and ended up there bedridden for a year in 1879.  He had taken a train alone to California, which is kind of dumb if you have both syphilis and tuberculosis, and arrived in Monterey to court a married lady, whose child came down with diphtheria the moment he arrived.  At her urging, and in consideration of his health, he left to go camping by the Carmel river.   Here, out in the woods, he collapsed, unable to move for days, dragging himself to the creek to refill his water bottle.  He was found by a bear hunter, Anson Smith 72, who recognized a dying man when he saw one, packed Stevenson onto a horse and carted him back to his ranch.  Smith and his ranch hands nursed Stevenson back to enough health the he could be moved.  Then Smith got Stevenson accommodation in Monterey’s ’The French House' hotel, belonging to Dr. Heintz and board from a chef, Jules Simoneau who ran an adjoining French restaurant.  Both of these men cared for Stevenson, again without pay, because although Stevenson’s family was very wealthy, Stevenson himself wouldn’t wire for money because he didn’t want them to know where he was, mostly because of the married lady.  Anyhow, the legend in Monterey and Carmel is that during those feverish days camping by the Carmel river, Stevenson dreamed up the plot to his novel Treasure Island and as he walked the beaches later, he discovered the other old legend, vis, hidden by the mouth of the Carmel river, was an old treasure of gold dust, some say in sacks worth $5000 each (in 1870s dollars, add a couple zeros), or stuffed in seagull quills.  The fabulous search for the buried treasure in Treasure Island may have been set among these California crystal beaches and twisted Monterey pine.  In any case, years later, Stevenson mailed Jules Simoneau a copy of the book out of gratitude for all those free lunches.  Also Carmel City named their elementary school after him.  Read an excellent biography of Robert Louis Stevenson here.

Xander has hidden buried treasure all around Eynhallow, but no one has found it yet.