Influences of Geographic Environment Part 65

While the high pastures are ample for the summer feeding, the chief problem of mountain stock-farmers is to secure feed for the winter support of their animals. This taxes their industry and ingenuity to the utmost. While the herdsmen are away tending their charges on the heights, the rest of the population are kept busy at home, getting fodder for the six or seven months of stall-feeding. This includes the cultivation of hardy crops like oats, rye and barley, which will mature at a great alt.i.tude, hay-making and collecting twigs and even leaves for the less fastidious goats. In Switzerland as in Norway the art of mowing has reached its highest pitch. Gra.s.s only three inches high is cut thrice yearly. The Norwegian peasant gathers a small hay harvest from the roofs of his house and barns, and from the edges of the highways. In Switzerland not a spear of gra.s.s escapes. In places inaccessible to cattle and goats, the peasant gathers hay by the handful with crampons on his feet, generally from the ledges of cliffs. He stacks it in one spot, and brings it down to the valley by sledge in winter. He is the _Wildheuer_ or wild hay gatherer. His life is so dangerous, that the law permits only one _Wildheuer_ to a family.[1316] In high Alpine cantons this office is the privilege of the poor.[1317] The traveler in Norway frequently sees huge bundles of hay sliding down to the valley on wires stretched from some high point on the precipitous fiord wall. This represents the harvest from isolated spots or from the field of the summer shepherd. In the vicinity of every _saeter_ hut, a plot of ground is fenced in, enriched with the manure gathered during the summer, and utilized to grow fine nourishing gra.s.s, which is mown and transported down to the valley farm.[1318] Here economy of vegetative resources reaches its climax.

[Sidenote: Methods of curing hay in mountains.]

In mountain regions of heavy rainfall, thick dew and numerous cloudy days, it becomes a problem to get the hay dried and stored before a drenching shower comes. In many parts of Switzerland, therefore, the peasant on a clear morning cuts a limited amount of gra.s.s. This, with the help of his wife and children, he diligently turns and tosses at short intervals all day long, thus subjecting it to a rapid curing process by the action of the wind and the sun, whose rays are doubly effective in the rarefied air of the heights. In the evening the hay is made up into bundles and carried on his back to the barn. In other parts of Switzerland the green hay is hung on horizontal poles arranged against the sunny side of the chalet and under its projecting roof, thus exposed to the heat and protected from the rain till cured. In Norway the same purpose is achieved by setting up in the fields racks supporting long horizontal bars, over which the newly cut gra.s.s is hung.

There it is exposed to the gentle fanning of the wind and penetrated by the warmth of the sun, in the short intervals when the sky is not overcast; and during a shower it sheds the water immediately, so that a minimum of harm is done. In the mountains of Germany, the hay is stacked on cone-shaped racks made of poles, with lateral projections which support the gra.s.s; thus the air can circulate freely inside the hollow cone, which is lifted well above the ground. Elsewhere sharpened stakes provided with cross bars are simply driven into the ground, and on these the hay is draped till cured.

Mountain hay-making leaves nothing to chance; too much depends upon the crop. In fact, at high alt.i.tudes it becomes the only crop. Cereal culture drops off with every increase of elevation. Norway has few fields above 1600 feet;[1319] even barley fails to ripen above 2600 feet.

In the mountains of Wurtenberg we find pure _Graswirthschaft_ at 3000 feet elevation, with only a small garden patch near the dwelling.[1320] It is interesting to take a tramp up one of the longitudinal or lateral valleys of the Alps, and observe the economic basis of life gradually change from agriculture to hay-making, till in some high-laid Alpine cirque, like Bad Leuk or Barmaz at the head of the Val d'Ilez, one sees only meadows and an occasional potato patch, which impresses the lowlander as a last despairing effort in the struggle for existence.

[Sidenote: Winter industries of mountain peoples.]

Where climate and soil do so little for the support of life, man must do much. Work must in some way be made to compensate for an ungenerous Nature. The closely housed existence necessitated by the long severe winters of high alt.i.tudes stimulates industries in the home. The winter feeding of the stock involves little labor, so the abundant leisure would otherwise be wasted. Hence it is no accident that we find almost everywhere native mountain industries in a high state of development, and often characterized by an artistic beauty which seems to be the one flower of this barren environment. They are naturally based upon the local raw materials of the mountains, such as wood, metals, clays, and especially the wool of sheep and goats. Moreover, their products are articles of small bulk and large value, adapted to costly mountain transportation. Those of Kashmir are typical-carved wood, artistic metal work in silver and copper, puttoo cloth, carpets and the famous Kashmir shawls.[1321] The stark life of Tibet shows in its industries an unexpected richness and beauty. The men spin and weave wool into puttoo cloth of all grades; some of it is extraordinarily fine in texture and color, and is exported by caravan in considerable quant.i.ty to northern China and Mongolia. Pastil sticks, made of aromatic wood and impregnated with musk and gold-dust, are a conspicuous commodity in the trade with Peking. Tibet is rich in metals, especially silver and gold. Even the nomad shepherds of the tablelands know how to purify gold-dust over a fire of argols; hence it is not surprising that the settlements in the irrigated mountain valleys should develop real artists in metallurgy.[1322] The province of Derge, which excels in metal work, produces swords, guns, teapots, bells and seals of extremely artistic design and perfect finish.[1323] The jewelry of Tibet suggests Byzantine work. It includes ear-rings and charm boxes of gold and carved turquoise, and is marked by the same delicate finish. But whether the Tibetan is working in wood, gold, bra.s.s, or wool, he uses native designs of real merit, and shows the expert craftsman's hand.[1324] His activities recall the metal work of the Caucasus and the famous rugs of Daghestan.

Turning to Europe we find watch and clock making in the Black Forest and the Jura, wood-carving in the Swiss and Norwegian mountains, bobbin lace in the Erz range and in Alpine Appenzell, and the far more beautiful Italian product of the rugged Abruzzi and the Frioulian Alps. The Slovaks of highland Hungary are expert in wire-drawing,[1325] and the peasant of the central Apennines makes from the gut of his goats the finest violin strings in the world, the so-called Roman strings.[1326] The low Thuringian and Franconian Forests, which harbor denser populations, have by a minute subdivision of labor turned their local resources to the making of dolls, which they supply to the markets of the world.

Here too the manufacture of gla.s.s articles, porcelains, majolica and terra-cotta flourishes.[1327] Most of these mountain industries merely supplement the scant agricultural resources; they represent the efforts of industrious but hard pressed people to eke out their meager subsistence.

[Sidenote: Overpopulation and emigration.]

The application of steam to industry has converted mountain regions of abundant mineral wealth into centers of production for the markets of the world. But this is the history of only the last century, and of only favored mountain regions. The utilization of waterpower for electricity in factories is transforming the piedmont belts of the Alps and Apennines; but life in the interior of these ranges remains unaltered by the denser population at their base, except for the increased demand for the b.u.t.ter, milk and cheese of the highland pastures. For the world at large, therefore, the obvious and persistent fact of mountain economy is a scanty food supply secured by even the most intelligent and untiring labor, and a fixed tendency to overpopulation. The simplest remedy for this evil is emigration, a fact which Malthus observed.[1328] Hence emigration is an almost universal phenomenon in highland regions.

Sometimes it is only seasonal. It takes place in the fall after the field work is over, and is due to the paucity of industries possible in the mountains during the winter. It seems to be a recurrence of that nomadic note in the _motif_ of mountain life--that migration in summer upward to the borders of the snow, in winter downward to the sun-warmed plains. In autumn the Swiss descend from the Jura and Alps in great numbers to cities, seeking positions as servants or pastry-cooks. The Auvergnats leave their home by the thousand in the fall, when snow covers the mountains, to work in the cities as hewers of stone and drawers of water, then return in summer to resume their tasks in field and pasture, bringing back sums of money which noticeably enrich the home districts.[1329]

[Sidenote: Forms of temporary emigration.]

This seasonal emigration often a.s.sumes the form of peddling, in order to dispose of small home-made wares. From the Basilicata and Modena Apennines the young men follow the pedler's trade, but the Basilicata village of Viggiano furnishes Italy with many wandering musicians.[1330]

The Kabyles of the Atlas Mountains go out in parties of two or three in the fall, and hawk every kind of goods, bringing back from their journey quant.i.ties of wool for home weaving.[1331] The emigration may last for several years, but finally the love of home generally calls the mountaineer back to his rugged hills. The Galicians of the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain leave their poor country for a time for the richer provinces of Portugal and Spain, where they become porters, water-carriers and scavengers, and are known as boorish, but industrious and honest. The women from the neighboring mountain province of Asturias are the professional wet-nurses of Spain. They are to be seen in every aristocratic household of Madrid, but return to the mountains with their savings when their period of service ends.[1332] In mountainous Basutoland, the Kaffir Switzerland of South Africa, arable land and pastures are utilized as completely as local methods of husbandry permit; and yet the native Kaffirs go in large numbers--28,000 out of a total population of 220,000 in 1895--to work in the mines of Kimberley and the Wit.w.a.tersrand. They also return in time with their savings.[1333]

Similarly the Battaks of the rugged mountain-rimmed plateau of western Sumatra emigrate in increasing numbers to the lowlands, and hire themselves out for a term of years on the Dutch plantations.[1334]

Another interesting and once rather widespread phase of this temporary emigration appears in the mercenary troops formerly drawn from mountain regions. After the Burgundian wars of the fifteenth century, the Swiss became the mercenaries of Europe, and in 1503 were first employed as papal life-guards. They served the kings of France from Louis XL till the tragedy of the Tuileries in 1792; and in that country and elsewhere they made the name "Switzer" a synonym for guard or attendant,[1335] till in 1848 the mercenary system was abolished. The pressure of population at home and the military spirit of the Scotch Highlanders once led the young Gaels to seek their fortunes in military service abroad, as in the army of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.[1336] Gurkhas from Himalayan Nepal, an independent state, are employed in considerable numbers in the Indian army to-day, and const.i.tute one of the most reliable divisions of the native troops. In January, 1901, there were 12,797 Gurkhas drawing pay from the Indian government as soldiers, besides 6000 more employed as military police, porters, and in other capacities.[1337] Similarly ancient Arcadia, the mountain core of Peloponnesus, was a constant hive of mercenaries.

[Sidenote: Permanent emigration.]

Often, however, permanent emigration is the result, robbing the mountain population of its most enterprising element, Piedmontese, Bergamese, and Frioulians from the Italian Alps leave their country in large numbers.

Many of them find work in Ma.r.s.eilles and other towns of southern France, infusing an Italian strain into the population there and making serious compet.i.tion for the local French. A proverb says there is no country in the world without sparrows and Bergamese.[1338] Geneva, once the citadel of Calvinism, is to-day a Catholic town, owing to the influx of Catholic laborers from Alpine Savoy. The overflow of the redundant population of this mountain province has given the Swiss canton a character diametrically opposed to its traditions.[1339] The Chinese provinces of Chili and Manchuria have been largely populated by immigrants from the barren mountain peninsula of Shantung; Manchuria has thereby been converted from an alien into a native district.[1340]

Emigration on so large a scale exercises far reaching economic and historical influences. Norse colonization contributed interesting chapters to the history of Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries.

Norwegians who have flocked to America have made a deep impress upon our Northwestern States. Switzerland in 1902 and 1903 gave as 9500 of its subjects, a valuable contribution. Scotchmen of Highland birth are scattered over the whole world, carrying with them everywhere their st.u.r.dy qualities of character. Even the stay-at-home French lose emigrants from their mountain districts. The people of the Ba.s.ses-Alps go to Mexico, and the Basques from the French Pyrenees seek Argentine.[1341] The honesty, industry, and frugality of these mountain emigrants make them desirable elements in any colonial population, and insure their success when they seek their fortunes in the uncrowded western world.

The alternative to overpopulation and its remedy emigration is found in preventive checks to increase. These sometimes take the form of restricted or late marriages, as Malthus found to be the case in Norway and Switzerland in 1799,[1342] before the introduction of steam or electric motive power had stimulated the industries of these countries or facilitated emigration thence. The same end is achieved by the widespread religious celibacy which sometimes characterizes mountain communities. In the barren Auvergne Plateau of France, the number of younger sons who become priests is extraordinary. Many daughters become nuns. Celibacy, seconded by extensive emigration, clears the field for the eldest son and the system of primogeniture which the poverty of this rugged highland has established as a fixed inst.i.tution in the Auvergne.[1343] A careful statistical investigation of the geographical origins of the Catholic priesthood in Europe might throw interesting light on the influences of environment. The harsh conditions of mountain life make the monastery a line of least resistance, while geographical isolation nourishes the religions nature and benumbs the intellectual activities.

It is in the corrugated highland of Tibet, chilled to barrenness by an elevation of 12,000 feet or more (4000 meters), sterile and treeless from aridity, carved by canon-cutting streams into deep gorges offering a modic.u.m of arable soil for irrigation, that monasticism has developed into an effective system to keep down population. Buddhism, with its convents and lamaseries, naturally recommended itself to a country where asceticism was obviously expedient. The world shows nowhere else so large a celibate cla.s.s. In Tibet, monks are estimated at 175,000 to 500,000 in a total population of three millions. Archibald Little estimates their number at one-third of the total male population.[1344]

Derge, which is the most productive district both agriculturally and industrially of eastern Tibet and is also most densely inhabited, counts at least 10,000 lamas in a total population of about 42,000.[1345] Not less than one-sixth of the inhabitants of Ladak are in religious houses as monks and nuns.[1346] Families in Tibet are small, yet each devotes one or more children to convent or monastic life.[1347] In western Tibet, especially about Taklakot in the Himalayan border, one boy in every family is invariably devoted to the priesthood, and one or more daughters must become nuns. But the nun generally resides with her family or lives in some monastery--with unspeakable results.[1348]

[Sidenote: Polyandry.]

The Tibetans seem to be enthusiastic Malthusians, with all the courage of their convictions. Religious celibacy among them is only an adjunct to another equally effective social device for restricting population.

This is the inst.i.tution of polyandry, which crops out in widely distributed mountain regions of limited resources, just as it appears not infrequently in primitive island societies. Its sporadic occurrence in extensive lowlands, as among the Warraus of Guiana and certain tribes of the Orinoco, is extremely rare, as also its occasional appearance among pastoral steppe-dwellers, like the Hottentots and Damaras.[1349] It is often a.s.sociated with polygamy where wealth exists, and is never the exclusive form of marriage, yet its frequency among mountain peoples is striking. Strabo describes fraternal polyandry as it existed in mountainous Yemen. There among a Semitic people, as to-day in Mongolian Tibet and among the aboriginal Todas of the Nilgiri Hills in peninsular India, the staff of one husband left at the door of the house excluded the others.[1350] In modern times the inst.i.tution is found throughout Tibet, and in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan districts adjoining it, as in Ladak, Kunawar, k.u.maon, Garhwal, Spiti, Sirmur, among the Miris, Daphlas, Abors and Bhutias occupying the southern slope of the Himalayans eastward from Sikkim, and the Murmese tribes of the Khasia Hills just to the south. The same practice occurs among the Coorgs of the Western Ghats, among the Nairs at the coastal piedmont of this range, among the Todas of the mountain stronghold known as the Nilgiri Hills (peaks 8000 feet or 2630 meters), and it crops out sporadically among certain mountain Bantu tribes of South Africa.[1351]

[Sidenote: Female infanticide.]

There seems little doubt that polyandry, as Herbert Spencer maintains, has been adopted as an obvious and easy check upon increase of population in rugged countries.[1352] It is generally coupled with other preventive checks. In the Nilgiri Hills, as we found also to be the case on many Polynesian islands, it is closely a.s.sociated with female infanticide.[1353] The Todas in 1867 showed a proportion of two men to one woman, but later, with the decline of infanticide under British rule, a proportion of 100 men to 75 women, and a resulting modification of the inst.i.tution of polyandry.[1354] It may well be that the paucity of women suggested this form of marriage, whose expediency as an ally to infanticide in checking population later became apparent. The Todas are a very primitive folk of herdsmen, living on the produce of their buffaloes, averse to agriculture, though not inhibited from it by the nature of their country, therefore p.r.o.ne to seek any escape from that uncongenial employment,[1355] and relying on the protected isolation of their habitat to compensate for the weakness inherent in the small number of the tribe.

Throughout Tibet and Ladak polyandry works hand in hand with the lamaseries in limiting population. The conspicuous fact in Tibetan polyandry is its restriction to the agricultural portion of the population. The pastoral nomads of the country, depending on their yaks, sheep and goats, wandering at will over a very wide, if desolate territory, practice monogamy and polygamy.[1356] The sedentary population, on the other hand, is restricted to tillable lands so small that each farm produces only enough for one family. Subdivision under a divided inheritance would be disastrous to these dwarf estates, especially owing to possible complications growing out of irrigating rights.[1357] Polyandry leaves the estate and the family undivided, and by permitting only one wife to several fraternal husbands restricts the number of children. It does this also in another way by diminishing the fertility of the mothers; for all travelers comment upon the paucity of children in polyandrous families.

Westermarck lays stress upon the fact that polyandry prevails chiefly in sterile countries. He regards it less as a conscious device to check increase of population than a result of the disproportion of males to females in polyandrous communities. The preponderance of male births he attributes to the excessive endogamy bordering on inbreeding which tends to prevail in all isolated mountain valleys; and also, as a possibility, to the undernourished condition of the parents caused by scanty food supplies, which Dusing found to be productive of a high percentage of male births in proportion to female.[1358] The motive of restricting population seems ent.i.tled to more weight than Westermarck concedes to it; for he slurs over the fact that in Tibet polyandry gives rise to a large number of superfluous women who fill the nunneries,[1359] while in the Nilgiri Hills redundant females were eliminated by infanticide. The fact seems to be that in the inst.i.tution of polyandry we have a social and psychological effect of environment, reinforced by a physiological effect.

[Sidenote: Effects of polyandry and polygamy.]

A comparison of social conditions in the adjoining provinces of Baltistan and Ladak, which together comprise the Himalayan valley of the Indus, reveals the character of polyandry as a response to geographic environment. Both provinces are inhabited by a Mongolian stock, but the Ladaki living on the uppermost stretch of the basin near Tibet are Buddhists and polyandrists, while the Baltis farther down the valley are Mussulmen and polygamists. The Baltis, with their plurality of wives and numerous children, are wretchedly poor and live in squalor on the verge of starvation; but as the elevation of their valley ranges only from 4000 to 8500 feet, they are inured to heat, and therefore emigrate in large numbers to the neighboring Mohammedan province of the Punjab, where they work as coolies and navvies. The Ladakis, on the other hand, living 9000 to 13,000 feet above the sea, die of bilious fever when they reach the lowlands. Cut off from emigration, they curtail population by means of polyandry and lamaseries. Consequently they show signs of prosperity, are well fed, well clothed and comfortably housed.[1360]

Baltistan's social condition ill.u.s.trates in a striking way the power of an idea like an alien creed, a.s.similated as the result of close vicinal location, to counteract for a time the influences of local geographic conditions.

[Sidenote: Marauding tendencies in mountaineers]

The less civilized mountain peoples, whose tastes or low economic status unfit them for emigration, solve the problem of a deficient food supply by raiding the fields and stores of their richer neighbors. Predatory expeditions fill the history of primitive mountain peoples, and of the ancient occupants of highland regions which are now devoted to honest industry. The ancient Alpine tribes were one and all, from the Mediterranean to the Danube, "poor and addicted to robbery," as Strabo says. He a.n.a.lyzes their condition with nice discrimination. "The greater part [of the Alps], especially the summits of the mountains inhabited by robbers, are barren and unfruitful, both on account of the frost and the ruggedness of the land. Because of the want of food and other necessaries, the mountaineers have sometimes been obliged to spare the inhabitants of the plains, that they might have some people to supply them."[1361] The freebooters usually descended into the lowlands of Italy, Gaul and Helvetia, but the pa.s.s peoples lay in wait for their prey on the mountain roads. Strabo described the same marauding habits arising from the same cause among the mountaineers of northern Spain,[1362] the Balkan range,[1363] and the highlands encircling the Mesopotamian plains.[1364]

Hunger is usually the spur. The tribesmen who inhabit the Hunza gorge were notorious robbers till their recent conquest by the British.

Despite the most careful terrace tillage, their country was much overpopulated. The supply of grain was so inadequate, that during the summer the people subsisted wholly on fruit, reserving the grain for winter use. Therefore, when early summer opened the pa.s.ses of the Karakorum and Himalayan ranges, and caravans began to move over the trade route between Kashmir and Yarkand, when the Kirghis nomads from the plains sought the pastures of the Pamir, the Hunza tribesmen found raiding caravans and herds, and pillaging the Gilgit Valley of Baltistan the easiest means of supplementing their slender resources. Hardy mountaineers as they were, and born fighters, they always conducted their forays successfully, and returned to the shelter of their fastnesses, laden with plunder and driving their captive flocks before them. The perpetual menace of these Hunza raids caused large districts in the Gilgit Valley to be abandoned by their inhabitants, and cultivated land to lapse into wilderness,[1365] while the Chilas to the south pillaged the Astor Valley of Baltistan, carrying away crops and cattle, enslaving women and children.[1366]

[Sidenote: Cattle-lifting.]

Marauding propensities are marked among all r.e.t.a.r.ded mountain peoples of modern times. The cattle-lifting clans of the Scotch Highlands, who preyed upon the Lowlands, have their counterpart in the Pathans of the Suleiman and Baluch mountain border who, till curbed by the British power in India, systematically pillaged the plains of the Sind.[1367] The forest Bhils of the Vindhyan and Satpura ranges are scarcely yet married to agriculture; so when in time of drought their crops fail and the game abandons the hill forests to seek water in the lowland jungles, the Bhils cheerfully revert to their ancestral habit of cattle-lifting.[1368]

The Caucasus was long a breeding place for robber tribes who made their forays into the pastures and fields of southern Russia. Robbery was part of the education of every Circa.s.sian prince, while one group of the Aba.s.sines conferred their chieftainship upon the most successful robber or the man of largest family.[1369] The Kurdish hillmen of the Armenian ranges descend with their herds of horses in winter to the warmer plains, where they exhaust the pastures and subject the Armenian villages to a regular system of blackmail.[1370] The wide gra.s.sy plains about Koukou Nor Lake, near the Chinese border of Tibet, attract numerous Mongol nomads with their herds; but these rich pastures are exposed to the depredation of Si Fan brigand tribes, who have their haunts in the deep, impenetrable gorges of the neighboring mountains, and carefully guard all the approaches to the same. They are Buddhists, but worship a special Divinity of Brigandage, to whom their lamas offer prayers for the success of every foray.[1371] Hence, among mountain as among desert peoples, robbery tends to become a virtue; environment dictates their ethical code.

[Sidenote: Historical results of mountain raiding.]

These depredations reflect to a great degree the complementary relation of highlands and lowlands. The plains possess what the mountains lack.

This is a fundamental fact of economic geography, and inevitably leads to historical results. The marauding expeditions of mountain peoples first acquire historical importance, either when the raids after long continuance end in the conquest of the lowlands, and thus augment the resources and population of the highland state; or, as is often the case, the raiders call down upon themselves the vengeance of the plainsmen, are subdued, and embodied in the lowland state. The conquest of ancient a.s.syria and the destruction of Nineveh by the mountain Medes seems to have been a process of this kind. Long before their descent upon Mesopotamia, they were known as the "dangerous Medes," were constantly threatening the a.s.syrian frontiers and occupying isolated tracts.[1372] The predatory incursions of the Samnites of the Apennines into the fertile fields of Campania eventuated in the conquest of ancient Capua and other cities, and greatly strengthened the Samnite Confederacy. But this encroachment of the mountain tribes upon the plains aroused the cupidity and alarm of the Romans, who in turn bent their energies toward the final subjugation of the Samnites.[1373]

Himalayan Nepal, after the unification of its petty Rajah states by the Gurkha conquest between 1768 and 1790, began encroachments and ravages upon the Indian Terai or fertile alluvial lowland at the foot of the mountains; and finally by 1858 had acquired t.i.tle to a considerable strip of it, which by its rice fields and forests greatly strengthened the geographic and economic base of the highland state.[1374] The Malay Hovas, inhabiting the central plateau of Madagascar, braced to effort by its temperate climate and not over-generous soil, have almost everywhere subdued the better fed but sluggish lowlanders of the coast.[1375] There can be little doubt that the beneficent effects of an invigorating mountain climate, especially in tropical and subtropical lat.i.tudes, have helped the hardy, active hill people to make easy conquest of the enervated plainsmen.

[Sidenote: Conquest of mountain regions]

It is more often the case, however, that the scant resources, small number, and divided political condition of the mountain tribes make such conquest impossible. Their depredations provoke reprisals from the stronger states of the plain, who bring the mountain region under subjection, merely to police their frontier. Strabo makes it clear that the Romans, having secured certain pa.s.ses over the Alps, neglected the conquest of the ranges, till the increase of Roman colonies along the piedmont rim excited the cupidity of the mountaineers. Muscovite dominion was extended over the Caucasus, both in order to check the persistent raids of its tribes into the Russian plains, and to secure control of its pa.s.ses. The state of Kashmir, guided by a purely local policy, for years tried to conquer the robber tribes on its northwestern frontier, merely to protect its own border provinces. Then the British authorities of the Indian Empire began the same process, but from a radically different motive. They saw the Gilgit and Hunza valleys, like the Chitral to the west, as highways through a mountain transit land, whose opposite approaches were held by the Russians.[1376]

Such conquests, whatever be their motive, profit the vanquished in the end more than the victor. They result in the systematic and intelligent development of the mountain resources, and the maintenance of ampler social and economic relations between highland and lowland through the construction of roads, which must always represent the reach of the governing authority. The conquest of mountain peoples means always expensive and protracted campaigns. The invader has always two enemies to fight, Nature and the armed foe. There is a saying in India that "In Gilgit a small army is annihilated and a large army starves to death."

Hunger is king in high alt.i.tudes, and comes always to the defense of mountain independence. Moreover, the inaccessibility of such districts, the difficulty of maintaining lines of communication, ignorance of by-paths and trails which forever offer strategic opportunities to the natives or escape at a crisis, all serve to protract the war. The independent spirit of the mountaineer, his endurance of hardships, his mastery of mountain tactics, and his obstinate resistance after repeated defeat, give always a touch of heroism to highland warfare.

Consequently, history abounds in examples of unconquered mountain peoples, or of long sustained resistance, like that which for sixty years under the heroic leadership of Kadi Mulah and Shamyl used up the treasure and troops of Russia in the impregnable defiles of the Caucasus. In the end, however, the highland tribes succ.u.mb to numbers and the road-making engineer.

[Sidenote: Political dismemberment of mountain peoples.]

Political dismemberment, lack of cohesion due to the presence of physical barriers impeding intercourse, is the inherent weakness of mountain peoples. Political consolidation is never voluntary. It is always forced upon them from without, either by foreign conquest or by the constant menace of such conquest, which compels the mountain clans to combine for common defense of their freedom. The combination thus made is reluctant, loose, easily broken, generally short-lived. It becomes close and permanent only under a constant pressure from without, and then a.s.sumes a form allowing to the const.i.tuent parts the greatest possible measure of independence. The Swiss canton and commune are the result of a segregating environment; the Swiss Republic is the result of threatened encroachments by the surrounding states. It owed its first genuine federal const.i.tution to Napoleon.

A report on the situation in the Caucasus, addressed to Czar Nicholas in 1829, contains an epitome of the history of mountain peoples. It runs as follows: "The Circa.s.sians bar out Russia from the south, and may at their pleasure open or close the pa.s.sage to the nations of Asia. At present their intestine dissensions, fostered by Russia, hinder them from uniting under one leader; but it must not be forgotten that, according to traditions religiously preserved among them, the sway of their ancestors extended as far as to the Black Sea. * * * The imagination is appalled at the consequence which their union under one leader might have for Russia, which has no other bulwark against their ravages than a military line, too extensive to be very strong."[1377]

Here we have the whole story--a mountain people pillaging the lowlands, exercising a dangerous and embarra.s.sing control over the pa.s.ses, and thereby calling down upon themselves conquest from without; weakened by a contracting territory within the highlands and a shrinking area of plunder without, doomed to eventual defeat by the yet more ominous weakness of political dismemberment.

[Sidenote: Individualism and independence]

Mountain tribes are always like a pack of hounds on the leash, each straining in a different direction. Wall-like barriers, holding them apart for centuries, make them almost incapable of concerted action, and restive under any authority but their own. Clan and tribal societies, feudal and republican rule, always on a small scale, characterize mountain sociology. All these are attended by an exaggerated individualism and its inevitable concomitant, the blood feud. Mountain policy tends to diminish the power of the central authority to the vanishing point, giving individualism full scope. Social and economic r.e.t.a.r.dation, caused by extreme isolation and encouraged by protected location, tend to keep the social body small and loosely organized.

Every aspect of environment makes against social integration.