Few of the streets in the town are well paved, and few of the villas
seen in driving in the suburbs aid to raise the architectural average.
Except for its palace-hotels, Pau seems to show little of artistic
building enterprise.

This city, so popular with the English, is rarely spoken of in America.
There, in fact, it is singularly little known. This is no truer of Pau
than of the Pyrenees themselves; but even to Englishmen who may know as
little as we of the latter, the former is familiar ground. Four thousand
Britons winter here annually, besides French and other visitors, and Pau
runs well in the hibernal race, even against Mentone and Nice. Its
hotels alone would evidence this. Up to these, there are all grades of
good accommodation,--the _pensions_, of good or better class; furnished
apartments, or a flat to be rented by the season; whole villas to be
leased or purchased, as the intending comer may prefer.

One can leave Paris or Marseilles by the evening express and be in Pau
the next afternoon,--about the same length of time as required to reach
St. Augustine from New York. This is certainly far from a formidable
journey, and it is matter for surprise that the adventurous American
does not oftener take it.

The favor of the spot, it owes to its climate. Something there is,--some
meteorological idiosyncrasy in its location,--which guards its still,
mild air, the winter through. Storms rage impotently down from the
mountains or across the Landes; they cannot pass the charmed barrier of
the coteaux. Winds are rare in Pau. Rain is not rare; but the
atmosphere, even when damp, is not chilling, and the lines of rain fall
soft and never aslant. There is a tradition of an old sea-captain who
once made a brief stay here and who, as he took his daily walks, was