Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
The shouts are, France, Spain, Albion, Victory!"

There is besides a goodly sprinkling from other countries. A Russian
nobleman and his family are to arrive at our hotel to-morrow. The spot
is not difficult of access for Italians. The Austrians have long
appreciated it. And do we not constitute at least a small contingent
from across the ocean?

Not only visitors make up the parti-colored effect. There are all grades
in Biarritz,--visitors and home-stayers, rich and poor,--

"From point and saucy ermine, down
To the plain coif and rustic gown."

The natives have their peculiar air and customs, and the Basques are
always picturesque. Spanish guitar-players vie with Neapolitan harpists,
and both with the waves and the hum of talk. The lottery spirit shoots
up here from its hot-bed in Spain. Small boys wander about the beach
with long, cylindrical tin boxes painted a bright red and carried by a
strap from the shoulder. The rim of the lid is marked off into numbered
compartments, and in its centre is an upright teetotum with a bone
projection; while the cylinder itself is filled with cones of crisp,
flaky sweet-wafers, stacked one into another like cornucopias. The
charge is one sou for a spin, and the figure opposite which the
projecting bone-piece stops indicates the number of cones due the
spinner. The figures vary from 2 to 30, and there are no blanks. Every
one appears to patronize the contrivance, and you constantly hear the
click of the teetotum along the beach. Though there are but two 30's in
the circumference, each who spins fondly hopes to gain one, and thus the