Sir John Lubbock says that “The use of writing as a medicine prevails largely in Africa, where the priests or wizards write a prayer on a piece of board, wash it off, and make the patient drink it. Caillie met with a man who had a great reputation for sanctity, and who made his living by writing prayers on a board, washing them off, and then selling the water, which was sprinkled over various objects and supposed to protect them.”[595] Mungo Park relates similar facts.[596] Sir A. Lyall says that a similar practice exists in India, where, however, the native practitioner may sometimes be seen mixing croton oil in the ink with which he writes his charms. “In Africa,” says Lubbock, “the prayers written as medicine or as amulets are generally taken from the Koran.” It is admitted that they are no protection against firearms; but this does not the least weaken faith in them, because, as guns were not invented in Mahomet’s time, he naturally provided no specific against them.[597] Among the Kirghiz Atkinson says that the Mullas sell such amulets at the rate of a sheep for each scrap of written paper,[598] and similar charms are in great request among the Turkomans[599] and in Afghanistan.[600] The very curious account of the trial of jealousy in Numbers vi. 11-31 may be studied in this connection as showing the extreme antiquity of the writing charm. In the case of the woman suspected of having committed adultery “the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord: and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water: and the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse: but if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; and this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: and the woman shall say, Amen, amen. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: and he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter. Then the priest shall take the