Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/170

Rh out of the rock brings the traveller to a far more ancient structure, which tradition assigns to

It is named indifferently Rufus Castle or Bow-and-arrow Castle, from the square loop-holes with which its solid walls are pierced. A single square tower remains, on the summit of an almost isolated mass of rock scarcely more than commensurate with itself, along which the road winds forty feet deep, through the arch of a bridge, which leads to the castle-door from the adjacent heights.

A most magnificent prospect expands as we pass under this bridge. We are on the verge of a precipice, with a little Cove below, called Church Hope, the only landing for a boat along this coast. Broken masses of stone are heaped in the wildest confusion on every side, and all up the craggy slopes, a wilderness of grey stone, of which the aspect is painfully desolate, and, so to speak, ruined. A steep and difficult road has been cut down to the beach, and about half-down is a hollow, whither the inhabitants resort for water. Beneath a stone a stop-cock is inserted, that none may be wasted of a fluid so precious: a woman with her pails coming down informed me that every drop they drink has to be fetched in this laborious manner, and carried up the steep precipice. To make it worse, the spring fails in droughts, when they must resort still lower, to a little stream that breaks out of the Cliff below.