The Pyrenees, West and East / by Charles Richard Weld.

  • Charles Richard Weld
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Pyrenees, West and East / by Charles Richard Weld. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    65/454 (page 45)
    CHAP. IV. To Bayonne. — The Pyrenees. — Cork-trees. — Bayonne. — Huge Omnibus. — Passports. — A Clerk in Distress. — Biaritz.—The Bay of Biscay. — Villa Eugenio. — The Empress.—The Pro- menade.— Fashionable Parisiennes.—East Ladies. — Patches, and Patching. — Social Life in England and France. — The Im- perial Prince. — Publicity of Biaritz. — Evening Amusements. — The Chffs of Biaritz. The most direct railway route to tlie Pyrenees is by the Bordeaux and Bayonne line as far as Dax, from whence diligences run to Pau. But as Bayonne is only thirty-one miles beyond Dax, and Biaritz, the pet watering-place of the fair Empress Eug6uie, is but a short distance from Bayonne, I resolved on visiting these places before going among the mountains. So I left Arcachon at eight in the morning, and, after a rapid transit across the Landes, had the satis- faction of seeing the pui’ple Pyrenees stretching far to the west. The change from the arid sterility of the Landes to the prolific vegetation of the country round Bayonne is extremely striking. But the beauty of the landscape is much marred by groves of cork-trees,