The French and Spanish form the bulk of the visitors during August and September, these months constituting, _par excellence_, what is called the season, while during the winter months the English take possession. In the winter months the hotel charges undergo great modification, and _pension_ can then be had in some of the best hotels at 7 francs per day.[45] It is noteworthy that _pension_ at Biarritz and Pau, and elsewhere in the south of France, includes wine. House accommodation, too, in the winter months is correspondingly cheap. The best months for enjoying Biarritz, we were informed, are the months of April and May, when the heat is sufficient but not oppressive. The month of July is sometimes unbearably hot. A family who had been there during July told us that they could hardly venture out in that month till late in the evening; and if the sirocco prevailed, they were even obliged to close the windows, the hot sand percolating through every crevice. The band of music, I understood, plays only during the two months of the season, and removes at its close, when the enclosure is dismantled. * * * * * But the great attractions of Biarritz consist in its beach, its rocks, its grand seas, and in its capacities for good bathing. We were never fortunate enough to witness a storm in the bay, although there was occasionally enough of swell upon the water to show what a storm could be. Our landlord, speaking of the appearance of a storm on the ocean, described it as ‘terreeble;’ and no doubt it is, and not very safe, too, as sometimes people are washed away by an unexpected dash and sweep of the ocean. But a standing evidence of the force of the waves is exhibited by the remains or ruins of the breakwater, begun in view of here affording a port of refuge and pier. Regarding this scheme Count Russell says (p. 13):— ‘Napoleon III. suggested it, meaning to connect by a breakwater several of the detached rocks scattered on the north–western side of the Porte Vieux, and thus to form a small harbour, only open to the north. A clever engineer, M. Palaà, was entrusted with this almost superhuman undertaking, but the only result has been, after years of labour and more than one sacrifice of life, to accumulate a shapeless and useless mass of ruins along the intended harbour. The breakwater (or what is left of it) was built with concrete; artificial square blocks weighing 36 tons (some of them 48) were sunk by hundreds at random and just where they liked to fall! But the tremendous surf has been playing with them as if they were pebbles, and in 1868 one of them was carried right over the pier (22 feet above low–water mark) like a toy or a feather! For these and for financial reasons the works are now suspended. They have already cost £120,000, and all to no purpose. In fact, nothing human can resist such a sea as the Sea of Biscay, except, perhaps, at St. Jean de Luz, where nature has half made a harbour.’