CHAX. XX. 
THE WATER SPIRIT. 
179 
well; if, on the contrary, you weep, the bodies only 
are returned without life. 
There are many stories current describing most 
minutely the beautiful palaces inhabited by the mer¬ 
maid spirits under the water ; and the creatures of the 
deep are said to serve them. Hence the 6 Iguana,’ 
a small kind of crocodile, proceed on shore at night and 
take chickens from the hen-roosts and eggs from the 
fowl-house for their fairy mistresses, while others carry 
back the vegetable substance with which the natives 
plaster or cleanse the floors of their own huts. It is also 
said that the bodies of those returned to the weeping 
relatives have always a mark of strangulation on the 
throat and also of having been tied with rushes, 
while the relatives of those who rejoice return to a 
new life. 
