The earliest among the buildings that tell of the past importance of the island is the Castle of Volterraio. A ride along the hills overhanging the gulf of Portoferraio brings us to the foot of the precipice on which it stands, rising, with the sheer rocks that form part of the building, out of a tangled mass of low growth, from which, every now and again springs a graceful wild olive. By only one path is the place accessible. Path is a courtesy title. The way up is a scramble, often on hands and feet, up smooth, slippery, slanting masses of jasper rock in whose crevices flourish rounded, hedgehog-like cushions of the most cross-grained thorns. Ten minutes’ climb brings us to an ancient wall with a gap, where was once a gate, and a strongly built, vaulted guard-house. Up again, over short grass this time, and we come to the low, narrow doorway at the top of a steep flight of steps sheer down on one side, without any trace of railing. At the bottom of the steps a hole in the ground gives evidence that an upright there supported a further defence of some sort. Inside, where armed men fought, a couple of fig-trees flourish greatly, and the ground is a series of heaps of grass-covered _débris_ that sound strangely hollow as one stamps on them. The sentinel’s round within the castellation of the walls is still intact. At some little distance on each side of the tower, which forms the south-eastern corner, it stops short, and deep holes for uprights in the parapet show clearly that a drawbridge on each side enabled the defenders to isolate the tower and fight to the last gasp. At one place it widens out. A number of men could make a stand there; the inner wall is pierced with many loopholes, and these all converge on one place: the steps leading up to the wall, and the well at the bottom of them. One can creep too, into a number of dungeon-like recesses in the walls, or clamber through a hole down a steeply inclined ledge of rock to a little underground chamber having a recess like a rough bed on one side, lighted by a hole in the rock that forms the roof, and another in that which looks over the gulf. A small opening, defended by an outwork, puts this underground cell into communication with the outer world; but the outwork is evidently a comparatively late structure. All this is absolutely lonely, save for a few goats that now and again make their way up, and the falcon that screams and wheels overhead. Once it was the storehouse of the Etruscans of Volterra, who, drawing iron, copper[11] and other minerals from the island, built the Volterraio as a defence for themselves and their treasures in case of sudden assault. It has stood many sieges, has heard the oaths of many nations in Roman and Mediæval times and is now falling to decay; for Turks and Saracens roam the seas no more, and the island it helped so long to guard has become part of a united peaceful kingdom.