84 ISLAND CULTURE AREA OF AMERICA [eth. ann.34 



Bay. As one leaves Speightstown the road rises gradually to a hill 

 and passes the castle, the entrance to which appears on the right-hand 

 side about 10 feet above the road. From its elevation the road has 

 been cut down to its present level, which necessitates leaving the road 

 in order to enter the cave by a slight climb on one side. The entrance 

 to the cave is through an archway with a keystone, on which a figure 

 is carved in relief. Both entrance and arch have their walls so 

 smooth that they appear to have been made by metallic implements; 

 their angles are well made and the walls are perpendicular. The 

 general form of the chamber I'eminds one of a beehive tomb. There 

 are recesses on each side wall and small niches in the rear wall facing 

 the observer as he enters the chamber. The floor is level, slightly 

 elevated above the entrance passage, and there is an opening in the 

 right-hand wall which communicated with a well with slanting sides 

 and floor lower than that of the main chamber. This well is open to 

 the sky above and externally at its base by a passageway entered from 

 a side hill, recalling a limekiln. The whole character of this exca- 

 vation, especially its conical apex, led the author at first to ascribe it 

 to Europeans. He accej^ted the opinion that it had been constructed 

 for a limekiln. It is to be said, however, that the walls are compara- 

 tively smooth and the angles and arch so well cut that it seemed to 

 have been constructed with more care than is usual with these struc- 

 tures. The theory that it was a place of refuge, for storage, or pos- 

 sibly a chapel, seems to have something in its favor. This beehive 

 subterranean chamber has borne for several generations the names 

 " Indian Cave," '' Indian Temple,'" '' Indian Castle " ; and the ad- 

 jective " Indian '" must be considered and explained away unless it 

 was made by aborigines. Several old residents nffirm that this room 

 has always been called the "Indian Cave" or "Indian Castle." 

 This name was current in 1750, as shown in the following quotation 

 from Eev. Griffith Hughes : 



"As there is a very commodious one [cave] in the Side of a neigh- 

 bouring Hill, called to this Day the Indian Castle, and almost in a 

 direct Line from Sie Mens Bmj, and not above a Mile and an half 

 off, in a pleasant Part of the Country, it is more than probable (espe- 

 cially as there was no other so near, and so convenient), that they 

 should pitch upon this, being upon several Accounts very commo- 

 dious; for, as the Mouth of it faced the West, and, being under the 

 Shelter of an Hill, was secured from the Wind and Eain, and even 

 from Danger by Hurricanes, and as the Entrance to it is so steep 

 and narrow, that, upon Occasion, one Man may defend himself 

 against an hundred, it may be justly called their Castle. But what 

 made this place more complete ... is an adjoining clayey Bottom, 

 where thej^ dug a Pond . . . which Place is, and hath been, since 

 the Memory of the oldest Neighbours alive, call'd the Indian Pond.'''' 



