This highway sees a considerable traffic.  Bayonne furnishes carts, Biarritz carriages.  Omnibuses ply to and fro; market-barrows are drawn frequently past; burden-bearers and peasants are met or overtaken trudging contentedly on.  The latter cheat both the omnibus and themselves, for the fare is but a trifle, and the road hot and sandy.  It is abundantly shaded by trees, but we agree that it is far better enjoyed en breach than on foot.

This is the road once famous for the cacolet.  It must have been a pleasing and peculiar sight, in the years ago, to see the jolly Duchess of Berri and her fashionable companions sociably hobnobbing with their peasant drivers en cacolet in the pleasant summer afternoons.

CHAPTER IV.

SAINT JOHN OF LIGHT.

  “Guibelerat so’guin eta
  Hasperrenak ardura?”

  “As we pursue our mountain track,
  Shall we not sigh as we look back?”

—­Basque Song.

The days pass happily by, at Biarritz.  One quickly feels the charm of the place; it has its own delightfulness, apart from the season and its amusements.  In the season, however, the amusements are not once allowed to flag.  By half-past ten, fashion is astir and gathers toward the beach for the bathing hour; then parts to walk and drive, and afterward to lunch.  It takes its siesta as does the nation its neighbor; meets once more for the afternoon hour on the sands, and at six drifts to the Casino, where children are soon dancing, little glasses clinking, and mild gambling games in full swing.  The thought of dinner deepens with the dusk, but in the evening the tide sets again to the Casino, and a concert or a ball rounds up the day.

The scope of diversions is much the same as on the opposite edge of the Atlantic,—­with due allowance for national types; but here there is perhaps more color to the scene.  European watering-places are naturally cosmopolitan.  Here at Biarritz, English society mingles with the French, and both are strongly reinforced from Spain.  Only thirteen hours from Paris, or twenty-two, actual travel, from London, it is but one from the Spanish frontier and eighteen from Madrid.  Memories of Orleans, Pavia and the Armada are canceled in the common pursuit of pleasure.

  “Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;
  Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
  Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
  The shouts are, France, Spain, Albion, Victory!”

There is besides a goodly sprinkling from other countries.  A Russian nobleman and his family are to arrive at our hotel to-morrow.  The spot is not difficult of access for Italians.  The Austrians have long appreciated it.  And do we not constitute at least a small contingent from across the ocean?

Not only visitors make up the parti-colored effect.  There are all grades in Biarritz,—­visitors and home-stayers, rich and poor,—­