door-steps of Pasajes and divides it into the two sections of San Juan and San Pedro. There are seasons when the Bay of Biscay is the incarnation of elemental fury, when the inviting natural harbour of San Sebastian is a death trap for any vessel that flies to it for shelter. When the south and south-west winds are blowing at the end of September, and the hurricane is driving the raging billows of the Atlantic before it; when even whales are caught by the stampeding waters and tossed like weeds on the sandy bosom of the Concha; when the roof of the Royal Nautical Club is swept by the waves, and the breakwater at the mouth of the Urumea crumbles before the ferocity of the gale; then is this north-east coast of Spain _anathema maranatha_ to those that go down to the sea in ships. But by the end of September, the holiday season in San Sebastian is over, and the holiday-makers are distributed over every country in Europe. The Court is removed to Madrid, the Palace of Miramar and the Casino are closed, the _Giralda_ seeks a surer anchorage, and the fishing-fleet is safely berthed in the land-locked harbours of Pasajes. The construction of the Royal Palaces of Madrid absorbed over a quarter of a century, and a whole army of labourers were twenty years on the Escorial before it was ready for occupation by Philip II. Five hundred men built the royal residence of Miramar in four years. Two architects collaborated in its construction--Mr. Selden Wornum, who laid down the general plan, and Señor Goicoa, who was in charge of the building operations and revised the plans as the work proceeded. The materials used, with the exception of some special tiles, which had to be brought from England, are Spanish, the marble and stone having been brought from the provinces of Guipuzcoa, Valladolid, and Burgos; the iron for the different stages from the ‘Altos Hornos’ and ‘Vizcaya’ factories of Bilbao, and the metal work from Eibar.