hree leaves, which shall keep thee ever unharmed.' In later
art this wand, or caduceus, is usually entwined with serpents; but on one
vase, at least, the wand of Hermes is simply the forked twig of our
rustic miners and water-finders. The same form is found on an engraved
Etruscan mirror. {183}

Now, was a wand of this form used in classical times to discover hidden
objects of value? That wands were used by Scythians and Germans in
various methods of casting lots is certain; but that is not the same
thing as the working of the twig. Cicero speaks of a fabled wand by
which wealth can be procured; but he says nothing of the method of its
use, and possibly was only thinking of the rod of Hermes, as described in
the Homeric hymn already quoted. There was a Roman play, by Varro,
called 'Virgula Divina'; but it is lost, and throws no light on the
subject. A passage usually quoted from Seneca has no more 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 concea