New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-08-26

two boats freighted with more Of these marine d.
whites who remain there perpetually and takeit as
personal offense if you catch cramp or venture
out too far.
There has, believe never been life lost in
bathing at Etreta and this fair record is part OF
the fortune of the town. ] see no reason why it
should ever be furnished however, for the French
are noticeably good swimmers. Every one swims,
and swims well-men, women, and children. l have
been especially struck with the prowess OF the ladies'
who take the neatest possible headers from the two
long plunging- boards which rugged in the water
upon high wheels. As you recline upon the beach,
You may observe Mademoiselle X. issue from her
cabin-Mlle. X, the actress of the Palais Royal
Theatre, whom you have seen and applauded behind
the footlights She wears bathing-dress in which,
as regards the trousers, even what have called the
minimum has been apprecably scanted; but she trips
down. surveying her breezy neither limbs. " Cest
conrenable Tespere, ek" says Mademoiselle and
trots up the spring board which projects over the
waves with one end uppermost, like great see-saw
She balances q moment, and then gives great
aerial dive executing on the way the most graceful
of somersaults. This performance Mile. \. repeats
during the ensuing hour, at intervals of five minutes
and leaves you, as you lie tossing little stones
into the water, to ponder the curious and delicate
question why lady may GO so far as to put herself
into single scant, clinging garment and take a
straight leap, head downward, before 800 specta-
tors, without violation of propricty-lcaving the
improperly to begin with her turning over in the
air in such way that for five seconds her head is
upward. The logic of the matter is mysterious;
white and black are divided by hair But the fact
remains that virtue is on one side of the hair and
vice on the other. There days here so still
and radiant, however, that it seems as II vice itself,
stepped in such an air and such a sea, might be
diluted into innocence The sea is as blue as melted
sapphres and the ragged white faces of the border
ing cliffs look like setting OF silver Every
one is idle amused, g0odnatured; the bathcrs take
the water as easily as mermen and mermaids. The
bathng-ncn in the two bdtedur dc Surveillance have
taken aboard freight of rosy Children more or less
chubby naked, and they have nailed gay
streamer and rude nosegay to their low mastheads
The swimmers dip and RISE circling round the boats
and playing with the children. Every now and then
they grasp the sides of the boats aud cling to them
in a dozen harmonious attitudes making one fancy
that Eugene Delacroixs great picture Of Dante and
Virgil the Styx. with the damned trying to
scramble into Charons bark has been reprinted as
q scene on one of the streams of Paradise. The
swimmers are not the damned, but the blessed, and
the demonstratve French babies are the cherubs.
The Casino at Etretat is a modest but respectable
institution. with a sufficiently capacious terrace
directly upon the beach, n cafe, n bilardroon, a
ball-room-whch may also be usedes theater,
readIng-room and a salon de oonr6sdt'on. ~ IL III
very good taste without any attempt at gliding or
mirrors; the ballroom in fact, il quite master
piece with its charm of effect produced simply by
implanted woods and happy proportions. Three
evenings in the week a bland young man in white
cravat plays walzes grand piano; but the effect
is not that of an American hop" owing TO the
young ladies of France not being permitted to dance
in public places They may only sit wistfully beside
their mammas. Imagine hop" at which sweet
seventeen is condemned to immobility. The burden
of the gayety is sustained by three four robust
English maidens and as many ghter-footcd Ameri-
cans. On the other evenings weak little operate
troupe gives light specimens of the lyric drama, the
privilege of enjoying which covered by ones sub
scrption to the Casino. The French hurry in joyousy
-four times a week in July aud August. at the
sound of the bell. but can give no report OF the
performances Sometimes | look through the
Iigbted windows and see on the dialuutiyc stage,
short-skrted young woman with ont hand ON her
heart and the other persuasively extended Through
the hot, unpleasant air comes htte ghOst
Of a roulade turn away and walk on the terrace
and listen TO the ocean vocalizne to the stars.
But there are by daylight other walks at Etrctat
than the terrace and no account of the place Is com
cliffs They are the finest have seen; their fan
tastc needles and butresses, at either end OF the
little bay give 10 Etretat a striking individuality.
Their hight is magnificent if poor eye for meas
urement is To be trusted should say ii was, on an
average an affair of 200 feet. In spite OF there
being no sands persistent admIrer of nature viii
walk long distance upon the tiresome sea-nargin
of pebbes for the sake of being under them and
visiting some of their quiet caves and shadowed
corners Seen thus from directly below, they look
stupendous they rise up like certain great noun
tain walls in the Alps They are Inaryelously white
and straight and smooth; they have the tone and
something of the surface of time-yellOwed marble,
and here and there, at their SUBMITS, they break
into quaint little pinnacles and trrets. But to be
on the top Of them is even better; here yon may
walk over miles of grassy breezy down. with the
woods contorted and sea-stunted, OF old iarmsteads
on your land side (the farmhouses hero have all
charming way Of being buried III wood, Ike the
castle of the Sleeping Beauty coming every little
while upon weather backened old shepherd and
his flock their conveIsation-;he shcphcrds-s de-
lightfu or on some little seward plungnP valley,
holding in its green hollow diminutivc agricultural
village curtaincd round from the sea-wnds by
dense circular stockade of trees. so you may 90
southwark or northward without impeachment to
Hayre or TO Dieppe. H. JAMES, JR.
EPISCOPAL METHODIST.