The most striking buildings,
however, are the hotels, one of which, the "Ocean House," is the largest
building of the kind we have ever seen. It has very much the appearance
of the huge convents one sees in Italy, and, standing on the top of the
cliffs, it has a most remarkable effect. There are some very good
streets, but the greatest part of the town consists of detached houses
standing in gardens. There are very few stone buildings of any kind. The
hotel we are in is not the largest, but is considered the best, and in
the height of the season the place must be very gay.
The next, perhaps the greatest, feature here is the bathing. There are
three beaches formed round a succession of points, the whole forming a
lovely drive on dry hard sand; and such a sun as we gazed upon yesterday
setting over these distant sands passes description. On the first of
these beaches are ranged more than a hundred bathing machines at about a
hundred yards above high-water mark, looking like sentry boxes on a
large scale, with fine dry sand between them and the sea. We went down
on Saturday to see the bathing, which is here quite a public affair; and
having fixed our eyes on a machine about a dozen yards off, we saw two
damsels enter it, while a young gentleman, who accompanied them went
into an adjoining one.
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