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A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix
page 23 of 303 (07%)
Howard and England's "wooden walls," events would have moved differently
during the last three centuries,--in our country as in theirs.


V.

The last spark of the sun has disappeared in the water. We turn into the
town in the fading light, passing another large bathing pavilion in a
sheltered cove, and saunter homeward through an undulating street, the
aorta of Biarritz. It is not a wide street, but it is busy and brisk,
and it has a refurbished look like newly scoured metal. Neat
dwelling-houses, guarded behind stone walls and well-kept hedges,
display frequent signs of furnished apartments to let Small and large
shops alternate sociably in the line; there is the _épicerie_ or
grocery-store, with raisins and olives and Albert biscuits in the
window; next is a lace and worsted shop, where black Spanish nettings
vie with gay crotchet-work,--

"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 café, the Frenchman's hearth-side; it compels a détour 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-à-brac bazaar, and another café, and a
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