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Die. 28.8.90:

Wir bleiben noch bis zum Mittag in Monterey und folgen dem „Path of History”, der durch die Alt­stadt führt. An die­sem mar­kier­ten Pfad ent­lang reihen sich bei wech­seln­dem Abstand an die 40 über­­wie­­gend im Adobe-Stil und meist ab 1830 er­bau­te Wohnhäuser und öf­fent­li­che Ge­bäude, dar­un­ter Kaliforniens erstes Theater (ur­sprüng­lich ei­ne Her­ber­ge für Ma­tro­sen), das Hauptquartier des ei­gen­sin­­ni­­gen Ge­ne­rals und Ex­pe­di­tionsleiters John C. Freemont und das La­ra-So­to-Haus, das John Stein­­beck 1944 kauf­te und mit seiner Familie ein Jahr lang be­wohn­te. Aus den 1830er Jah­ren stammt auch das „Robert Louis Stevenson House”. In das da­ma­li­ge Ho­tel hatte sich der schottische Schrift­­stel­­ler von Sep­tem­ber bis De­zember 1879 einquartiert, derweil seine Geliebte Fanny in San Fran­­cis­­co ihre Scheidung von dem Aben­teu­rer S. Os­bourne be­trieb. Das zweistöckige Haus ist nun als Museum mit angeschlossener Bibliothek ein­ge­rich­tet und enthält unter den Exponaten Brie­fe, Skiz­­zen, Ex­em­pla­re von Erstauflagen, Familienbilder sowie per­sön­li­che Din­ge aus der Hand seiner Nach­kom­men.

   Stevenson begann schon in Monterey an seinem postum veröffentlichten Reisebericht ,The Ama­teur Emigrant' zu schrei­ben. Das Ka­pitel „The Old Pacific Capital” schil­dert Stadt und Region wie folgt:

„On no other coast that I know shall you enjoy, in calm, sunny weather, such a spectacle of Ocean's greatness, such beau­ty of changing col­our, or such degrees of thun­der in the sound. The very air is more than usually salt by this Ho­meri­c deep ... The houses were, for the most part, built of unbaked adobe brick, many of them old for so new a coun­try, some of very elegant proportions, with low, spacious, shape­ly rooms, and walls so thick that the heat of sum­­mer never dried them to the heart ... Spanish was the language of the streets  ... Night aft­er night serenaders would be going about the street ... each guitar before a different window. It was a strange thing to lie a­wake in nine­­teenth-cen­tu­ry America, and hear the guitar accompany, and one of these old, heart-breaking Spanish love songs mount in­to the night air ...
   The town, then, was essentially and wholly Mexican; and yet almost all the land in the neighbourhood was held by Ame­ri­cans ... In my lit­tle restaurant at Mon­te­rey, we have sat down to table day after day, a Frenchman, two Por­tu­guese, an Italian, a Mexican, and a Scotchman : we had for common visitors an Ame­ri­can from Illinois, a near­ly pure blood Indian woman, and a naturalised Chinese; and from time to time a Switzer and a German came down from country ranch­es for the night. No wonder that the Pacific coast is a foreign land to visitors from the East­ern States, for each race contributes something of its own ...
   The Monterey of last year exists no longer. A huge hotel has sprung up in the desert by the railway ... Alas for the little town! it is not strong enough to resist the in­flu­ence of the flaunting caravanserai, and the poor, quaint, pen­ni­less na­tive gentlemen of Monterey must perish, like a lower race, before the millionaire vul­ga­ri­ans of the Big Bo­nan­za.”

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