Biarritz, September 24.

I hope you may be enjoying better weather than we. Four days of the week we have rain; the others are stifling hot, accompanied by a horrible sirocco. Still, the sea is far more beautiful here than at Boulogne, and the figs and ortolans make it possible to sustain the burden of life.

I made, the other day, an interesting excursion into the mountains, and saw one of the most remarkable grottoes in existence. You pass beneath a great natural bridge, made of a single arch, as long as the Pont Royal; on one side you see a wall of rocks, and on the other a tunnel, natural also, and very long. For nature, less clever than the engineers, contrived to make her bridge lengthwise, and the tunnel is the extension of this. Under the tunnel, and perpendicular to the bridge, flows a limpid stream. The proportions of all this are gigantic. The air within is very cool, and one feels as if he were a thousand leagues from humanity. I will show you a sketch of it, made on horseback. This enchanting place, which is called simply Sagarramedo, is in Spain, and if it were in the suburbs of Paris some one would make a show place of it, charge fifty centimes admission and make his fortune.

In another cavern, a league’s distance from the first, but in France, we found about twenty smugglers, who sang some Basque airs in chorus, to the accompaniment of the galoubet. This is a small, shrill flageolet, which has in its tones something exceedingly wild and agreeable. The music is full of character, but mournful enough to drive the devil into the ground, like all the mountaineers’ music. As for the words, I understood only viva emperatrica! of the last couplet.

We were guided to the place by a singular man, who has made a large fortune smuggling. He is the king of these mountains, and everybody is subject to his commands. Nothing could have been finer than to see the way he galloped among the rocks beside our column, which had great difficulty in following the beaten paths. He dashed over every obstacle, calling to his men in Basque, in French, and in Spanish, and never once making a false step. The empress had charged him to watch over the prince imperial, whom he made pass, him and his pony, over the most impossible routes that you may imagine, and watching over him as carefully as if he had been a bale of contraband goods. We rested for an hour in his home at San, where we were received by his daughters, who are well-bred persons, stylishly dressed, not in the least provincial, and differing from Parisians only in their pronunciation of the r, which for the Basques is always r-r-r-h.

We are expecting the armoured fleet; but the sea is so rough, that if it came we could not communicate with it. There are not many people at Biarritz, some startling costumes, and few pretty faces. Nothing could be uglier than the bathers with their black costumes and caps of oil-cloth.

I have been presented to the duc de Leuchtenberg, who is quite friendly. I discovered that he read Schopenhauer, believed in positive philosophy, and had a leaning towards socialism.

I expect to be in Paris early in October. Shall you not be there? I should be glad to see you before I go into winter quarters. I am growing scandalously stout, and my breathing is much better than in Paris.

Good-bye, dear friend. I have written a droll little thing, which may amuse you, if you should condescend to listen.