We had been recommended on our first visit to apply for quarters at the Pension Colbert, near the termination of the Rue Montpensier, at the north or rural side of the town, kept by English ladies (Misses Finch). It was at first a steep pull up the hill for the horses, but the hill conquered, the road was thereafter level. We had been made not merely so comfortable, but so much at home, at this house that we engaged rooms in it on our return from Biarritz. On our first visit in September, it was before the season commenced, and we were accordingly the only guests; on the second, the house was nearly full, and we experienced similar kind attention. It is recommended, with a view to getting gradually accustomed to the climate before winter sets in, that invalids should come in September, and there seems no reason in the shape of excessive heat or the presence of mosquitoes to prevent it; the weather, indeed, was cool during our first visit. But the season does not really begin before the end of October, and it is even the first week of November before Pau becomes tolerably full. We accordingly found it upon our second visit, in the middle of October, still comparatively empty.
The climate of Pau is not what suits every one. As compared with Biarritz in the months from October to March inclusive, the mean temperature is, according to the month, from one to five degrees lower. Whether it was owing to our experiencing a difference of temperature, or to the fact of our having had a good deal of rain while in Pau, or whether due to accidental circumstances, such as neglect to shut a bedroom window one evening, we all caught colds there, and lost much of the good we had got at Biarritz. The fact suggests some notice of what has been said on the subject of the climate of Pau as a health resort.
Dr., afterwards Sir Alexander Taylor, who wrote a special book on the climate of Pau and other places,[49] divides climates into three classes: exciting, sedative, and relaxing, and he gives us examples (p. 21)—
1. Of exciting climates—Nice, Naples, Montpellier, and Florence.
2. Of sedative climates—Rome and, par excellence, Pau.
3. Of relaxing climates—Pisa and Madeira.
‘In the sedative climate we have a more neutral state of the atmosphere—a remarkable freedom from dryness on the one hand, and from communicable humidity on the other, and in Pau particularly, great stillness of the atmosphere.’
It is therefore only in cases where a sedative climate would be beneficial that Dr. Taylor recommends Pau, and in a subsequent chapter (p. 100) he mentions the kind of cases for which the climate of Pau is specially beneficial.
Among the characteristics of the climate, he mentions that while more rain falls in Pau than in London and some other situations in England, yet from the absorbent nature of the soil, and from some peculiar electric state of the atmosphere, there is an absence of ‘free communicable humidity;’ and that while 27 inches of rain fall annually in London, and from 40 to 50 inches in Pau, the number of rainy days is only 109 against 178 in London. Further, a very important advantage possessed by Pau is its distinguishing freedom from wind from apparently any quarter, while the malevolent circius, bise, and the mistral are never felt there. Dr. Taylor contrasts in tables the difference of temperature between Greenwich and Pau—as, for example, in the mean temperature of each for the months between October and May, showing them to vary, according to the month, from 3 to 7 degrees in favour of Pau. The mean moisture of the air is also shown to be generally about one-twelfth less at Pau; while a further circumstance is that there is more sunshine at Pau, imparting greater cheerfulness to the winter climate. A very curious additional fact is thus stated (p. 80):—