Now when Tom got to the home of the water babies, in Saint Brandan’s fairy isle, he found that the isle stood all on pillars, and that its roots were full of caves.  There were pillars of black basalt and pillars of green and crimson serpentine; and pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow sandstone; and there were blue grottoes and white grottoes, all curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and crimson, green and brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the water babies sleep every night.  But, to keep the place clean and sweet, the crabs picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them like so many monkeys; while the rocks were covered with ten thousand sea anemones, and corals and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day long, and kept it nice and pure.  But, to make up to them for having to do such nasty work, they were not left black and dirty, as poor chimney-sweeps and dustmen are.  No; the fairies are more considerate and just than that, and have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours and patterns, till they look like vast flower beds of gay blossoms.

And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out nasty things at night, there were thousands and thousands of water snakes, and most wonderful creatures they were.

They were dressed in green velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet; and were all jointed in rings; and some of them had three hundred brains apiece, so that they must have been uncommonly shrewd detectives; and some had eyes in their tails; and some had eyes in every joint, so that they kept a very sharp lookout; and when they wanted a baby snake, they just grew one at the end of their own tails, and when it was able to take care of itself it dropped off; so that they brought up their families very cheaply.  But if any nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and then out of each of their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler’s shop of
 Scythes, Creeses,
 Billhooks, Ghoorka swords,
 Pickaxes, Tucks,
 Forks, Javelins,
 Penknives, Lances,
 Rapiers, Halberts. 
 Sabres, Gisarines,
 Yataghans, Poleaxes,
 Fishhooks, Corkscrews,
 Bradawls, Pins,
 Gimlets, Needles,
    And so forth,
which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, pinked, and crimped those naughty beasts so terribly that they had to run for their lives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be eaten afterwards.

And there were the water babies in thousands, more than Tom, or you either, could count.  All the little children whom the good fairies take to, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all who are untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by ill usage or ignorance or neglect; all the little children in alleys and courts, and tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles, and scarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any business to have, and which no one will have some day, when folks have common sense; and all the little children who have been killed by cruel masters and wicked soldiers; they were all there, except, of course, the babes of Bethlehem who were killed by wicked King Herod; for they were taken straight to heaven long ago, as everybody knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents.