Here we spent a few days of rest after a long and wearying journey. The coast is dangerous. The bay is rough to a degree that has become a proverb. An attempt was making under government direction to construct a breakwater, so as to enclose a “harbor of refuge,” and one is greatly needed. A process, new to me, but perhaps common, was going on: that of building rocks, or blocks, to make the projecting pier. Thousands of square feet of rock are here in the hills, but, for some reason, it is preferred to form a concrete mass with stone and cement. These are made in cubes of six or eight feet, with two grooves underneath them, and when they have stood long enough to be proof against water, levers are thrust under them, a derrick hoists them upon a platform which is moved on a railway to the pier, where they are launched off into the deep. The fury of the waves at this point, especially in rough weather, is frightful. The new breakwater was recently swept away. Two or three workmen were caught by the waves rushing higher than was expected, and the poor fellows were carried off into a deeper ocean. This terrified the others, and they declined to expose themselves to such dangers. The priests came to the rescue. They set up an image of the Virgin on an overhanging rock. She looks down benignly on the work and the workmen. Not one has been swept away since she stood there!! Confidence is restored. The breakwater is gradually extending. It will cost an immense sum, and if the Virgin is so successful in saving the lives of the landsmen in building it, one would think she might just as easily save the sailors, and so render the harbor unnecessary. On this stormy coast, where the surf breaks over huge rocks, and sometimes rushes curiously through them by passages worn in ages of incessant roll, there are several coves where the beach slopes gradually to the sea, and the smooth sand floor furnishes delightful bathing grounds. Here, in the season, the court used to disport itself in other robes than those of royalty, and among the crowds of fashionable people, who in fantastic _deshabille_ indulge in the ocean bath, were daily seen the Emperor and Empress and the remarkable boy who astonished the mayor by being the son of an Emperor when only ten years of age!