<g>In the centre</g> of the main walls were square wells, opening at bottom into arches, for the removal and distribution of stores to the upper apartments; and through the solid walls, also, flues were perforated for the conveyance of information by the voice. And these contrivances, with considerable improvements, continue in our own times to facilitate domestic intercourse in large establishments. In the centre of the partition wall--as seen at Rochester[394]--was a well for water--like the shaft of a coal pit--going from the bottom of the tower up to the very leads; and over every successive floor were small arches in the wall, forming a communication between the pipe of the well and the several apartments, so that, by means of a pulley, water could be distributed to every part of the Castle. The fireplaces in general were semicircular arches--as already shown and described in this work. The chimneys were in the form of a sloping cone, and terminated in loopholes. In some instances, as at Chepstow, they were covered internally with a hard glazing of cement, so as to prevent the accumulation and lodgment, and facilitate the removal, of fuliginous matter on the surface. The great chimney of Raglan Castle is a fine specimen of its kind, and so capacious as to appear like the perpendicular shaft of a deep well. The sinks are similar cones, but ending sideways, obliquely, to prevent the introduction of weapons. The great state apartments of the Castle consisted of three rooms: of these, the two principal ones were separated only by large arches, open at the top, so that there might be a free circulation of air; but under the arch was a partition wall, in later times of oak-panelling, for hanging the arras. Such are a few of the characteristic features of a Norman fortress of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--the model upon which the great castles of Wales were constructed by Edward the First--of which various particulars have been already given, and others will be found interspersed in subsequent portions of this work. While wandering over the ruins of these dilapidated strongholds, of whose founders it may here be truly said--_stat nominis umbra_, we are humbled into a sense of the vain and fragile tenor by which all earthly possessions are held. “There the thistle shakes its lonely head; the moss whistles to the winds; the fox looks out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waves round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina; silence is in the house of her fathers.” “Thrice happier he who tends his sheep Where yonder lowly cot appears; Than Baron in his iron Keep, Encircled by his glittering spears.”