“By Heaven, it is a splendid sight to see
  Their rival scarfs of mix’d embroidery,”

all made by hand, and bewilderingly low-priced.  Now we come to a mirrored cafe, the Frenchman’s hearth-side; it compels a detour into the middle of the street, since the sidewalk is quite preempted by its chairs and tiny tables.  Here is another Spanish store, conspicuous for its painted tambourines with pendent webs of red and yellow worsted, and for its spreading fans, color-dashed with exciting pictures of bull-fights and spangled matadors.  A hotel appears next, across the way, standing back from the street, with:  a small, triangular park between; and then comes a pretentious bric-a-brac bazaar, and another cafe, and a confectioner’s, and a tobacco-store,—­each presided over by a buxom French matron, affable and vigilant, and clearly the animating spirit of the establishment.

Tiny carriages of a peculiar species, with donkeys and boy drivers, line the streets.  The carriage holds one,—­say an infirm dowager seeking the afternoon breeze,—­and if the driver’s attendance is desired, he is able to run beside it for miles.  It is light and noiseless, comfortably cushioned, always within call, and governed by a beneficently trifling tariff.  These vinaigrettes, as they are called, would be appreciated at home, if habit took kindly to novelties.  How greatly they might simplify problems of calling and shopping!  Our conveyances are all cumbrous.  We must have the huge barouche, the coach, the close-shut coupe.  Even the phaeton yields to the high T-cart.  But convention is autocratic, and would frown on these vinaigrettes as it frowns on many useful ideas.  Another unfortunate victim of its taboo is the sedan-chair, which would be lustily stared at to-day, yet the utility of which might be made positively inestimable.  One who reads of the Chinese palanquins, or sees the carrying-chairs of Switzerland, convenient and always in demand, or who watches these agile little vinaigrettes darting along the ways, wonders that similar devices do not force their way, if need be, into universal favor.

Another mode of conveyance, once peculiarly popular with Biarritz, might be more difficult of exportation.  This was the promenade en cacolet.  The town of Bayonne is but five miles distant, by a delightful road, and formerly, particularly before the railroad came in, to ridicule old ways, every one went to Bayonne en cacolet.  It is no longer so, and the world has lost a unique custom.  The contrivance was very simple:  the motive power was a donkey or a horse, and the conveyance consisted of a wooden frame or yoke fitting across the animal’s back, with a seat projecting from each side.  One seat was for the driver, usually a lively Basque peasant-woman; the other was for the passenger.  There was a small arm-piece, at the outside of each seat, and generally there was a cushion.  This was once a favorite means of travel between Bayonne and Biarritz.