It was an offshoot of Koromantyn and was built by the Royal Adventurers of England in 1624, but Admiral de Ruyter, the Dutchman, in 1665 drove them out and took the castle, not without a good deal of bloodshed. But in 1673 a new company, the Royal African Company was formed, and out of the wrecked remains of what de Ruyter had left they built up the present castle. It was mysterious to go out of the garish sunshine of the courtyard into the gloom of the tunnelled staircase that led to the bastion, and to remember that Phillips and men of his ilk had passed up that self-same staircase more than two hundred years before, had stood on that self-same bastion in like hot sunshine, had watched the vultures settle on the roof of the little ammunition house in the corner, and the flag of Britain flutter out from the flag-staff that the hard cement foundation supported. Beyond was the sea, whence had come those grim old slavers, and I, a woman from the South, the land of liberty. All round the walls from their embrasures grinned those eighteen guns that defended the castle and terrorised the negroes. And round them is piled up the shot that has never been used and will never be used now. On the west side the coconut palms have grown up, the wind whispers among the fronds that overshadow the guns, whispers that though their day is done the problem that they started still remains, and has only been taken with blood and bitter tears to the other side of the Atlantic. By the sea-shore of this lovely island I hear its echo crying mournfully. In one of the embrasures of the wall from among the piled shot had grown up a green pawpaw tree. The pawpaw is but an ephemeral thing, a tree of a year or so, but its fruit is good to eat. Shall good come out of evil? It marks decay too. Not so would they have kept the castle when Phillips saluted with seven guns to show he was minded to trade for those “stalwart villains,” the men of Annamabu. Everything is very straight up and down, very square and grey and solid. Possibly Mr Searle, the factor Phillips talks about, and his young mulatto wife dwelt in those rooms-or in rooms not unlike them, very tall and large, with great window spaces. There was little furniture in my time, though this was supposed to be a rest-house. But no man ever comes along the coast now, now that the slaves are not, and the gold is not, and the elephants are gone. The place is held solely for the benefit of the negro, and the dust has settled on everything. There are customs clerks and telegraph clerks, but they are negro, and as yet they do not care. Neither do the English who dwell and rule from Accra, for Accra is far, when the only means of progression is a man's pace, and the rulers say, “These old shells of castles are not worth preserving.” Are they not?