least, in the walls that connect the round towers, of which there were
six, one on each side of a gateway in front, and the same at a gateway
towards the river, where there is a steep descent to a wall and square
tower, at the water-side. Great pains and a great deal of gunpowder must
have been used in converting this castle into a ruin. There were one or
two fragments lying where they had fallen more than two hundred years
ago, which, though merely a conglomeration of small stones and mortar,
were just as hard as if they had been solid masses of granite. The
substantial thickness of the walls is composed of these agglomerated
small stones and mortar, the casing being hewn blocks of red freestone.
This is much worn away by the weather, wherever it has been exposed to
the air; but, under shelter, it looks as if it might have been hewn only
a year or two ago. Each of the round towers had formerly a small
staircase turret rising beside and ascending above it, in which a warder
might be posted, but they have all been so battered and shattered that it
is impossible for an uninstructed observer to make out a satisfactory
plan of then. The interior of each tower was a small room, not more than
twelve or fifteen feet across; and of these there seem to have been three
stories, with loop-holes for archery and not much other light than what
came through them. Then there are various passages and nooks and corners
and square recesses in the stone, some of which must have been intended
for dungeons, and the ugliest and gloomiest dungeons imaginable, for they
could not have had any light or air. There is not, the least, splinter
of wood-work remaining in any part of the castle,--nothing but bare
stone, and a little plaster in one or two places, on the wall. In the
front gateway we looked at the groove on each side, in which the
portcullis used to rise and fall; and in each of the contiguous round
towers there was a loop-hole, whence an enemy on the outer side of the
portcullis might be shot through with an arrow.