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Within those were spacious galleries, long and large, adorned with curious pictures, the horns of bucks and unicorns: with rhinoceroses, water-horses called hippopotames, the teeth and tusks of elephants, and other things well worth the beholding. The lodging of the ladies, for so we may call those gallant women, took up all from the tower Arctic unto the gate Mesembrine.
Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go "trapsin about the earth" at their own free will; "but there are faeries," she added, "and little leprechauns, and water-horses, and fallen angels." I have met also a man with a mohawk Indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs.
Miss Douglas dear, it wasn't for nothing I dreamt last night of water-horses. As big as three hills it was, with an awful starin' white face, and a tail on it near as long as from Portree to Sligachen.
Anne comes from Skye, and often tells me about water-horses and such-like odd denizens of that far island; and I find her soft Highland speech, with its "ass" for "as" and "ch" for "j," very diverting; but this time I wasn't amused. "But nothing has happened, Anne. What are you talking about? Where is my brother?" "Mercy on us all, how can I tell?
The water-bulls are described as being friendly to man; the water-horses are dangerous when men get upon their backs they are carried off and drowned. Sometimes the water-horse takes the shape of a man. Here is a story of this kind from the island of Islay: There was a farmer who had a great many cattle.
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