Note 2 — A VICTOR AT CHUNGKE

Page 114. The chungke stone of this favorite game of the southern Indians bears a certain resemblance to the ancient discus of the Greek athlete. This, it will be remembered, fashioned of metal or stone, circular, almost flat, was clasped by the fingers of one hand and held in the bend of the forearm, extending almost to the elbow. The genuine chungke stone is solid and discoidal in shape, beautifully polished, wrought of quartz, or agate, the most distinctive being concave on both sides, beveled toward the flat outer edge, and having a depression in the centre of both surfaces for the convenience of holding it with the second finger and thumb, the first finger clasping the periphery. Its usual dimensions are about six or eight inches in diameter. There are several varieties of these archaic relics, some flat, others lenticular or of a wedge-shell shape, and others, still, concave on one side and convex on the other. An absolutely spherical stone, bearing the extraordinarily high polish that distinguishes these unique objects, found in an ancient mound and supposed to have relation to the same or a similar game, calls to mind the globular quoit of the classical athletes and that "enormous round" described by Homer, "Aëtion's quoit"—to hurl which bowl they vie, "who teach the disk to sound along the sky."