s, and, almost by magic, Arcachon began to grow.

By swift degrees the little cluster of fishermen's cottages spread till
it became a town--of one street truly, but the street is a mile and a
half long, skirting the seashore and backed by the fir forests. Bordeaux
took Arcachon by storm. A railway was made, and all through the summer
months the population poured into the long street, filling it beyond
all moderate notions of capacity. The rush came so soon, and Arcachon
was built in such a hurry, that the houses have a casual appearance,
recalling the towns one comes upon in the Far West of America, which
yesterday were villages, and to-day have a town-hall, a bank, many
grog-shops, a church or two, and four or five daily newspapers.

A vast number of the dwellings are of the proportion of pill-boxes. Some
are literally composed of two closets, one called a bedroom and the
other a sitting-room; or, oftener still, both used as bedrooms. Others
are built in terraces a storey high and a few feet wide, with the name
of the proprietor painted over the liliputian trap-door that serves for
entrance hall. The idea is that you live at ease and in comfort at
Bordeaux, and just run down to Arcachon for a bath. There are no
bathing machines or tents; but all along the shore, in supplement of the
liliputian houses that serve a double debt to pay--being residences at
night and bathing-machines by day,--stand rows of sentry-boxes, whence
the bather emerges arrayed in more or less bewitching attire. The water
is very shallow, and enterprising persons of either sex spend hours of
the summer day in paddling about in their bathing costumes.

It is a pretty, lively scene. For background the long straggling town;
in the foreground the motley groups of bathers, the far-reaching smooth
surface of the lake; and, beyond, the broad Atlantic, thundering
impotently upon the barricade of sandhills that makes possible the
peace of Arcachon.

Like all watering-places, Arcachon lives two lives. In summer-time it
springs into active bustle, with house-room at a premium, and the shops
and streets filled with a gay crowd. It affects to have a winter season,
and is, indeed, ostentatiously divided into two localities, one called
the winter-town and the other the summer-town. The former is situated
on the higher ground at the back of the town, and consists of villa
residences built on plots reclaimed from the fir forest.

This is well enough in the wint