of the cliff and partly sheltered by the rocks out at sea. "Many of
these rocks," writes an old-time visitor,[2] in the pleasantly aging
English of 1840, "are perforated with holes, so that, with a high sea
and an incoming tide, and always, indeed, in some degree, when the tide
flows, the water pours through these hollows and rents, presenting the
singular appearance of many cascades. Some of the rocks lying close to
the shore, and many of those which form the cliff, are worn into vast
caverns. In these the waves make ceaseless music,--a hollow, dismal
sound, like distant thunder,--and when a broad, swelling wave bounds
into these caverns and breaks in some distant chamber, the shock, to
one standing on the beach, is like a slight earthquake. But when a storm
rises in the Bay of Biscay, and a northwest wind sweeps across the
Atlantic, the scene is grand beyond the power of description. The whole
space covered with rocks, which are scattered over the coast, is an
expanse of foam, boiling whirlpools and cataracts, and the noise of the
tremendous waves, rushing into these vast caverns and lashing their
inner walls, is grander a thousand times than the most terrific
thunder-storm that ever burst from the sky."

[2] INGLIS: Switzerland and the South of France.


In these little coves now float idle pleasure-boats, bright with paint
and listless awnings, and ready to be manned by their stout Basque
rowers. Here, too, are the fishermen's cabins, snugly built in against
the rocks, and garnished with baskets and poles, and with men repairing
their nets. The irregular curves of the bluff, broken here into abrupt
and dislocated masses, lend themselves readily to winding paths, and we
ramble on, curving upward and downward, over short bridges and through
little tunnels under the rocks, each turn giving a new view of the bay