g all the vessels. Such drags go under
the name of Brownies. When we have plenty, they have scarcity at their
homes; and, on the contrary (for they are not empowered to catch as much
prey everywhere as they please), their robberies, notwithstanding,
ofttimes occasion great ricks of corn not to bleed so well (as they call
it), or prove so copious by very far as was expected by the owner.

Their bodies of congealed air are sometimes carried aloft, other whiles
grovel in different shapes, and enter into any cranny or clift of the
earth where air enters, to their ordinary dwellings; the earth being full
of cavities and cells, and there being no place, no creature, but is
supposed to have other animals (greater or lesser) living in or upon it
as inhabitants; and no such thing as a pure wilderness in the whole
universe.

We then (the more terrestrial kind have now so numerously planted all
countries) do labour for that abstruse people, as well as for ourselves.
Albeit, when several countries were uninhabited by us, these had their
easy tillage above ground, as we now. The print of those furrows do yet
remain to be seen on the shoulders of very high hills, which was done
when the campaign ground was wood and forest.

They remove to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the
year, so traversing till doomsday, being impotent of staying in one
place, and finding some ease by so purning [journeying] and changing
habitations. Their chameleon-like bodies swim in the air near the earth
with bag and baggage; and at such revolution of time, seers, or men of
the second sight (females being seldom so qualified) have very terrifying
encounters with them, even on highways; who, therefore, awfully shun to
travel abroad at these four seasons of the year, and thereby have made it
a custom to this day among the Scottish-Irish to keep church duly every
first Sunday of the quarter to _seun_ or hallow themselves, their corn
and cattle, from the shots and stealth of these wandering tribes; and
many of these superstitious people will not be seen in church again till
the next quarter begins, as if no duty were to be learnt or done by them,
but all the use of worship and sermons were to save them from these
arrows that fly in the dark.

They are distributed in tribes and orders, and have children, nurses,
marriages, deaths, and burials in appearance, even as we (unless they so
do for a mock-show, or to prognosticate some such thing