The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-24
THE STORY OF AN OLD
 WEST INDIAN FORTRESS

then If you are fortunate young MT An-
 drea Rodrigues, who with his father man.
 ages the government lime kiln that Is
 eating up Birthstone hill and may have 1t all devoured in 300 years so, will
 stroll with you through the old fortifl- | cations. After some more climbing of steep roads, shaded, however, with tree ferns, mountain palms and wild tamarind monkey guglets, the negroes call the last mentioned-you arrive at the frown- Ing old gateway of the fort. It is mas- sive arch of rugged masonry just like l Q stone bridge under a railway enlbank- ment It lets you into another road turn ing back at acute angle with the one you have ascended, like the letter ly- ing on its side. It is a gateway that could not be rushed by an army corps. AS you enter, a wall which Is really the
 revetment of the hillside faces you, and the inside roadway is a mere gully A whitening musketry fire could have been
 poured into 1t by a couple of thousand
 men strung along each crest of the en- closing banks, while cannon would, no doubt, have swept it longitudinally with
 grape and canister, in case of an attack.
 The peaceful storming parties of today, however-and there are precious few of them-fnd no more trouble in penetrating to the heart of the works than is offered
 by the steep grade and stony path. How vanished the pomp and circumstances of war from the barricaded precnicts There Is not even a flagstaff left, not one old
 cannon, honeycombed by the elements.
 There are the embrasures where the guns
 were once mounted and some of the 1 ringbolts, leaded into the masonry, to which tackle was once attached still re- sist the rust of ages. There are the | loopholes too in the vaulted chambers
 where hundreds of red coated soldiers once lived, loopholes from which tho
 musketry fire would have spit with null tipied deadiness had the place ever been attacked; but today they only let in thin
 streaks of light to show the ravages of time, the mildewed brick floors, the orumbling ceilings, the weeds and fungi fattening upon the moisture and slowly eating up the very stones.
 Half way up through the works you pass out through an old sallyport upon a level
 patch in the angle of wall. They call it thr Masonic burying place. There are 40 or 50 graves They are neatly kept now and a few roses and other simple< flowers grow upon them. They are alf exiles from England who sleep there, so far away and so forgotten. British of- ficers and their wives and children chiefly the wives and children-are in- dicated by the half dozen headstones that are legible In whole or in part But by far the greater number-of monuments are furrowed and scaled by century of torrential rains and torrid sunshine. so that not sign or a letter that af- lection once graved upon them remains The most recent of the inscriptions go Back to the beginning of the last cen tury, 1915 to 1920, perhaps In a quar- ter of century more not one will be legible
 Going still higher up the hill. passing tier after tier of battlemented works. the great reservoirs become an object of at- tentfon. They are still full of water, for the rain still falls as of old when they were built of capacity to supply di- vision of troops through months of siege. but the water Is foul and slmy, covered with unhealthy vegetable scum. The tanks are replenished still by the great collecting basins of smooth stone work carefully cemented and succeed There are several of them. each an acre in extent, and funnelling down to sluice- ways. When the rains come down the great catch of these basins swirls in cat aracts Into the great echong chambers ho.lowed for it's reception in the native roc.
 Then there Is the chapel, never seeming ly a very ornate structure, and now the most ruinous spot of all. There are coy- cred ways which open on almost sub terranean chambers in which stores were probably kept, and on absolutely subter- rdnean ones WHICH uouDtleSS were the magazines. A final sharp climb up A long semi-circular flight of stone steps in a semi-runous state brings the visitor to the central citadel, a massive stone structure surrounding great Jagged court where an invading palm tree reafu Itself in the socket where the great flag. staff once flew the English standard. Around the court in the depth of the wall there are again those vaulted cham har ipgs. Probably these were the officers quarters. The outer ones get a little more light from the open court than those further down the hill, but the obscurity of the inner rooms is only tempered by the thin rays from the rife embrasures
 It is from the stone roof of these cham bers. where the gun platforms are still clearly marked, that there may be seen, in the golden radiance of the midday sun, one of the most enchanting pictures that the world affords. There Is the long sinuous island coast line for many miles, with Its wealth of life and color: the town of Sandy Point and the govern ment lazaretto. red-roofed, nestling in palm groves, the fields of cane or cotton with the homes and huts and grinding mills. Then there is the purple blue Caribbean with it's mother of pearl sheen, and far away in the offing the islets of Statla and Saba, not looking like ehrtn una rock HidSses rlSlng out or the water, but like slight painted things sus- pended in the air and lowering in the gos- samer mist that the swelter in the air draws up lazily from the sea-
 It seems incredible that these islands were for at least century the head quarters of smugglers and freebooters. that their golden era was that time when cruelty and plumber ragged all over the surrounding seas, and that their prosper ity was snuffed out. perhaps forever. by one of the most gigantic deeds of spoiation in history when Admiral Rod ney seized Port Orange and confiscated s15. 100000 worth of merchandise.