It wasn't easy to find but the following early 1900s photograph may explain the "bluffs" comment. This photograph is news to me too. Scroll down to page 30. The trolly is riding ontop of a small bluff. A very narrow beach is between the bluff and the water. This was taken from the Biloxi Lighthouse looking west!

http://books.google.com/books?id=I55PqccW9wMC&pg=PA29&dq=biloxi+Beach+photographs&hl=en&ei=lWKVTKK5FIHCsAPyvvDACg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Here is more...

"Although the light is today a good distance from the water's edge, this hasn't always been the case. In the 1850s, the tower stood on the edge of a sand bank, just twenty-nine feet from the shoreline. A concrete seawall was constructed to protect the bank from erosion. During a storm in 1860, part of the wall collapsed, allowing the surging sea to undermine the foundation on one side of the tower. The resulting void caused the tower to lean two feet from vertical. A plain brick tower might have collapsed under such conditions, but Pleasonton's iron sheath, kept the tower intact. After the Civil War, earth was removed from beneath the lighthouse on the side opposite the lean, and the tower gradually returned to its former vertical position." The photograph posted was taken in 1901 and shows a little of the bluff on the left.

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David