ws, and close winding stairs of stone. The top rises in a cone, or
pyramid of stone, encompassed by battlements. The intermediate floors
are sometimes frames of timber, as in common houses, and sometimes arches
of stone, or alternately stone and timber; so that there was very little
danger from fire. In the center of every floor, from top to bottom, is
the chief room, of no great extent, round which there are narrow
cavities, or recesses, formed by small vacuities, or by a double wall. I
know not whether there be ever more than one fire-place. They had not
capacity to contain many people, or much provision; but their enemies
could seldom stay to blockade them; for if they failed in the first
attack, their next care was to escape.

The walls were always too strong to be shaken by such desultory
hostilities; the windows were too narrow to be entered, and the
battlements too high to be scaled. The only danger was at the gates,
over which the wall was built with a square cavity, not unlike a chimney,
continued to the top. Through this hollow the defendants let fall stones
upon those who attempted to break the gate, and poured down water,
perhaps scalding water, if the attack was made with fire. The castle of
Lochbuy was secured by double doors, of which the outer was an iron
grate.

In every castle is a well and a dungeon. The use of the well is evident.
The dungeon is a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and
arched on the top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a
ladder or a rope, so that it seems impossible to escape, when the rope or
ladder is drawn up. The dungeon was, I suppose, in war, a prison for
such captives as were treated with severity, and, in peace, for such
delinquents as had committed crimes within the Laird's jurisdiction; for
the mansions of many Lairds were, till the late privation of their
privileges, the halls of justice to their own tenants.

As these fortifications were the productions of mere necessity, they are
built only for safety, with little regard to convenience, and with none
to elegance or pleasure. It was sufficient for a Laird of the Hebrides,
if he had a strong house, in which he could hide his wife and children
from the next clan. That they are not large nor splendid is no wonder.
It is not easy to find how they were raised, such as they are, by men who
had no money, in countries where the labourers and artificers could
scarcely be fed. The bui