to do with the divining rod than with the telephone. Pliny
is a writer extremely fond of marvels; yet when he describes the
various modes of finding wells of water, he says nothing about the
divining wand. The isolated texts from Scripture which are usually
referred to clearly indicate wands of a different sort, if we except
Hosea iv. 12, the passage used as motto by the author of _Lettres qui
decouvrent l'illusion des Philosophes sur la Baguette_ (1696). This
text is translated in our Bible, 'My people ask counsel at their
stocks, _and their staff declareth unto them_.' Now, we have here no
reference to the search for wells and minerals, but to a form of
divination for which the modern twig has ceased to be applied. In
rural England people use the wand to find water, but not to give
advice, or to detect thieves or murderers; but, as we shall see, the
rod has been very much used for these purposes within the last three
centuries.

This brings us to the moral powers of the twig; and here we find some
assistance in our inquiry from the practices of uncivilised races. In
1719 John Bell was travelling across Asia; he fell in with a Russian
merchant, who told him of a custom common among the Mongols. The
Russian had lost certain pieces of cloth, which were stolen out of his
tent. The Kutuchtu Lama ordered the proper steps to be taken to find
out the thief. 'One of the Lamas took a bench with four feet, and
after turning it in several directions, at last it pointed directly to
the tent where the stolen goods were concealed. The Lama now mounted
across the bench, and soon carried it, or, as was commonly believed,
it carried him, to the very tent, where he ordered the damask to be
produced. The demand was directly complied with; for it is vain in
such cases to offer any excuse.'[183] Here we have not a wand, indeed,
but a wooden object which turned in the direction, not of water or
minerals, but of human guilt. A better instance is given by the Rev.
H. Rowley, in his account of the Mauganja.[184] A thief had stolen
some corn. The medicine-man, or sorcerer, produced two sticks, which
he gave to four young men, two holding each stick. The medicine-man
danced and sang a magical incantation, while a zebra-tail and a rattle
were shaken over the holders of the sticks. 'After a while, the men
with the sticks had spasmodic twitchings of the arms and legs; these
increased nearly to convulsions.... According to the native idea, _it
was