As we ascended the rock, crowned with the frowning ruin of Careg-cannon castle, a tempestuous cloud that broke against it drenched us with a plentiful shower: we sought the shelter of the building, but the wind raged with such violence, that we shrunk from the mouldering battlements lest they should overwhelm us. On crossing the ruin through its “stormy halls,” we again recoiled on finding ourselves upon the brink of a tremendous precipice, which, except on the side by which we ascended, encompasses the castle in a perpendicular rocky cliff upwards of four hundred feet in height. Then climbing among the mossy fragments of the castle, we discovered an aperture in the ground connected with a long subterraneous gallery dug through the solid rock, and lighted by windows cut in the cliff, though not visible from any situation without. In exploring this strange recess, rendered more fearful by the loud shrieks of the wind, we advanced, not without sensations of awe: it terminated in a large gloomy cavern, fit scene for “Murders, rapes, and massacres, Acts of black night, abominable deeds, Complots of mischiefs, treason, villanies Ruthful to hear.” In this place we waited the passing of the storm, conjecturing it to have continued formerly to some adjacent spot, so as to form a sally-port or secret communication from the castle. On our return we felt more at liberty to examine the features of the ruin, which proved of the simplest construction, totally without ornament or a single Gothic form, and consisting of one irregular court with towers at each angle. If the Britons had any castles of stone before the arrival of the Normans (a fact doubted by some antiquaries), I should imagine this to be one; although a late tourist, I know not on what authority, ascribes its erection to the time of Henry the First. The position must have been formerly impregnable, and its rough aspect marks it to have been constructed for the mere business of war. By —a lonely tower, —whose mournful chambers hold, To night-struck Fancy dreams, the yelling Ghost,