There are seats on this mound, whence people can watch the bathing; and we often saw a remarkable feat performed from it as well.  A race of wonderful water-dogs—­said to be a cross between the Newfoundland and the French poodle—­is bred at St. Jean de Luz, eight miles from Biarritz.  One of their uses is to drive the fish into the nets, and for this purpose one is taken in every boat that puts to sea.  The method is extremely simple.  As soon as the net surrounds a shoal, the dog is put in the centre, and by beating the water with his paws he effectually drives the finny creatures into the meshes.  It was one of this same species of dogs that attracted so much attention at the Port Vieux by leaping after a stick from the mound—­a distance of some fifty feet—­into the sea.  He would do it as often as his master would let him, and appeared to enjoy it immensely, though he always reached the water before the stick, and had then to turn round and hunt for it.

The road, after skirting one side of the yard, crosses the trackway that runs down the pier and doubles up the other side, through the tunnel and past the Port aux Pecheurs, into the Place Ste. Eugenie; whence, continuing by the base of the Hotel d’Angleterre and the casino, it extends to the bathing establishment on the Plage.  In the other direction it rounds the Port Vieux, and leads under the cliffs to the other resort of summer bathers; consequently, it might be appropriately termed the “Chemin des Bains.”

The pier is a very favourite resort, and many a fierce fight with the waves is enacted at its extremity, in which, alas! the sea has always proved the stronger.  As a rule, visitors are not permitted to pass the “Cucurlon” rock, on which the Virgin’s statue stands; but if the weather is very fine, the gate is opened to admit of any who are so minded going to the end.  On a wild day, with a high wind blowing inland, the “battle of the waves” is a fine sight, especially from the platform erected below the flagstaff on Cape Atalaya.  Thence the full beauty of the huge billows, dashing into clouds of spray against the pier, and, unallayed, pursuing their course with relentless energy till they boom amid the hollow caverns of the hill, may be admired and wondered at.

There are two rocks which (as one looks seaward) rise up to the left of the pier, and serve to break in some measure the force of the waves.  The larger of these in calm weather is frequented by cormorants, and has gained the name of “Cormorant Rock.”  There were three of these birds on it one very rough day, and we saw a scene enacted which—­with due apologies to the late Rev. Charles Kingsley for thus adapting his pathetic verses—­we have commemorated in the following lines, under the title of

“THE THREE CORMORANTS.”

  Three cormorant dandies were perch’d on a rock,
  Were perch’d on a rock as the waves dash’d high;
  Each thought himself equal to any black cock,
  And proudly determined the sea to defy. 
  For cormorants fish, and cormorants catch,
  And they swallow their prey with the utmost despatch,
  Without all the trouble of boning!