By such simple narratives do the Chinese strive to convey great truths to childish ears.
Many sports were once common in China which have long since passed out of the national life, and exist only in the record of books.

Among these may be mentioned "butting," a very ancient pastime, mentioned in history two centuries before the Christian era.

The sport consisted in putting an ox-skin, horns and all, over the head, and then trying to knock one's adversary out of time by butting at him after the fashion of bulls, the result being, as the history of a thousand years later tells us, "smashed heads, broken arms, and blood running in the Palace yard." The art of boxing, which included wrestling, had been practised by the Chinese several centuries before butting was introduced.

Its most accomplished exponents were subsequently found among the priests of a Buddhist monastery, built about A.D.

500; and it was undoubtedly from their successors that the Japanese acquired a knowledge of the modern _jiu-jitsu_, which is simply the equivalent of the old Chinese term meaning "gentle art." A few words from a chapter on "boxing" in a military work of the sixteenth century will give some idea of the scope of the Chinese sport.
"The body must be quick to move, the hands quick to take advantage, and the legs lightly planted but firm, so as to advance or retire with effect.