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to see her, and, indeed, frightened many; though, to do her justice, she desired her visitors not to be terrified at her domestics, as she termed them, for they were not like many that attended on the gentry, saucy, imperious, and unfaithful, but were always attendant on the will of her whose hand fed them, nor would injure without provocation, a lesson, she used to say, she wished was learned by all mankind.
Of a pipe of tobacco our Bridget was exceedingly fond, and, indeed, was continually whiffing; and as she indeed, humourously used to observe, she had “ sent more puffs into the world, than all the quacks in the kingdom;” from a long contracted habit, likewise, when she was smoking, of ever being seated so that her knees almost touched her visage, her limbs became so contracted, that when she became in years, she was almost double, which, together with her enormous length of nose and chin, her pipe, and the number of animals about her, made her cut a most hideous figure, and appear rather uncommonly terrifying to those who were not apprised of it.
Though this famous old woman had never been taught to write, yet, by long practice, she had formed to herself a kind of hieroglyphical characters, in which she deciphered her observations, knowledge, and remarks; these I found concealed within the thatch of her cave; but as they were so unintelligible, I thought it would be impossible to make head or tail of such a heap of monsters, and other figures as were attempted to be drawn; but as I am rather of a studious turn, I thought as I had made it my business formerly to transcribe the Egyptian
