Chapter XVI: Influences of a Mountain Environment (1)

[Sidenote: Zones of altitude.]

There are zones of latitude and zones of altitude. To every mountain region both these pertain, resulting in a nice interplay of geographic factors. Every mountain slope from summit to piedmont is, from the anthropo-geographical standpoint, a complex phenomenon. When high enough, it may show a graded series of contrasted complementary locations, closely interdependent grouping of populations and employments, every degree of density from congestion to vacancy, every range of cultural development from industrialism to nomadism. The southern slope of the Monte Rosa Alps, from the glacier cap at 4500 meters to the banks of the Po River, yields within certain limits a zonal epitome of European life from Lapland to the Mediterranean. The long incline from the summit of Mount Everest (8840 meters) in the eastern Himalayas, through Darjeeling down to sea level at Calcutta, comprises in a few miles the climatic and cultural range of Asia from Arctic to Tropic.

[Sidenote: Politico-economic value of varied relief.]

For the state, a territory of varied relief is highly beneficial, because it combines manifold forms of economic activity, a wide range of crops, areas of specialized production mutually interdependent. It induces a certain balance of urban and lief, rural life, which contributes greatly to the health of the state.[1253] The steep slopes of Dai Nippon, fertile only under spade tillage, will forever insure Japan the persistence of a numerous peasantry. For geological and geographical reasons, as from national motives, therefore, Japan will probably never sacrifice its farmer to its industrial class, as England has done. On the other hand, contrasted reliefs on a great territorial scale tend to invade political solidarity. Tidewater and mountain Virginia were poor running-mates for a century before the Civil War, and then the mountain region broke out of harness. Geographical contrasts made the unification of Germany difficult, and yet they have added to the economic and national strength of the Empire. The history of Switzerland shows the high Alpine cantons always maintaining a political tug of war with the cantons of the marginal plain, and always suffering a defeat which was their salvation.

[Sidenote: Relief and climate.]

The chief effect of a varied relief is a varied climate. This changes with altitude in much the same way as with latitude. Heat and absolute humidity diminish, generally speaking, as height increases, while rainfall becomes greater up to a certain level. The effect of ascending and descending currents of air is to diminish the range of temperature on mountain slopes and produce rather an oceanic type of climate. The larger and more uniform a climatic district, the more conspicuously do even slight elevations form climatic islands, like the Harz Mountains in the North German lowlands. A land of monotonous relief has a uniform climate, while a region rich in vertical articulations is rich also in local varieties of climate.[1254] A highland of considerable elevation forms a cold district in the Temperate Zone, a temperate one in the Tropics, and a moist one in a desert or steppe. Especially in arid and torrid belts does the value of elevation for human life increase.

[Sidenote: Altitude zones of economic and cultural development.]

The highlands of Mexico, South America and the Himalayan rim of India show stratified zones of tropical, temperate, and arctic climate, to which plant, animal and human life conform. The response is conspicuous in the varying density of population in the successive altitude zones. Central Asia shows a threefold cultural stratification of its population, each attended by the appropriate density, according to location in steppe, piedmont and mountain. The steppes have their scattered pastoral nomads; the piedmonts, with their irrigation streams, support sedentary agricultural peoples, concentrated at focal points in commercial and industrial towns; the higher reaches of the mountains are occupied by sparse groups of peasants and shepherds, wringing from upland pasture and scant field a miserable subsistence. The same stratification appears in the Atlas Mountains, intensified on the southern slope by the contrast between the closely populated belt of the piedmont and the wandering Tuareg tribes of the Sahara on the one hand, and the sparse Berber settlements of the Atlas highlands on the other. The long slope of Mount Kilimanjaro in German East Africa descends to a coastal belt of steppe and desert, inhabited by Swahili cattle-breeders. Its piedmont, from 1000 feet above the plain up to 2400 feet, constitutes a zone of rich irrigated plantations and gardens, densely populated by peaceful folk of mingled Bantu and Hamitic blood. At 6000 feet, where forests cease, are found the kraals, cattle, sheep and goats of the semi-nomadic Masai of doubtful Hamitic stock, who raid the coastal lowlands for cattle, and purchase all their vegetable food from the tillage belt.[1255] [See maps page 105 and 487.]

This stratification assumes marked variations in the different geographical zones. In Greenland life is restricted to the piedmont coastal belt; above this rises the desert waste of the ice fields. Norway shows a tide-washed piedmont, containing a large majority of the population; above this, a steep slope sparsely inhabited; and higher still, a wild plateau summit occupied in summer only by grazing herds or migrant reindeer Lapps. Farther south the Alps show successive tiers of rural economy, again with their appropriate density of settlement. On their lower slope is found the vineyard belt, a region of highly intensive tillage, large returns upon labor, and hence of closely distributed settlement. Above that is the zone of field agriculture, less productive and less thickly peopled. Higher still is the wide zone of hay farming and stock-raising, supporting a sparse, semi-nomadic population and characterized by villages which diminish with the altitude and cease beyond 2000 meters. On Aetna, located in the tropical Mediterranean, three girdles of altitude have long been recognized,--the girdle of agriculture, the forest belt, and the desert summit. But the tourist who ascends Aetna, passes from the coast through a zone of orange and lemon groves, which are protected by temporary matting roofs against occasional frosts; then through vineyards and olive orchards which rise to 800 meters; then through a belt of summer crops rising to 1550 meters, and varied between 1400 and 1850 meters elevation by stretches of chestnut groves, whose green expanse is broken here and there by the huts of the forest guards, the highest tenants of the mountain. From these lonely dwellings down to the sea, density of population increases regularly to a maximum of over 385 to the square mile (150 to the square kilometer) near the coast.

[Sidenote: Altitude and density belts in tropical highlands.]

In the tropical highlands of Mexico, Central and South America, on the other hand, concentration of population and its concomitant cultural development begin to appear above the 2000 meter line. Here are the chief seats of population. Mexico has three recognized altitude zones, the cold, the temperate and the hot, corresponding to plateau, high slopes and coastal piedmont up to 1000 meters or 3300 feet; but the first two contain nine-tenths of the people. While the plateau has in some sections a population dense as that of France, the lowlands are sparsely peopled by wild Indians and lumbermen. Ecuador has three-fourths of its population crowded into the plateau basins (mean elevation 8000 feet or 2500 meters), enclosed by the ranges of the Andes. Peru presents a similar distribution, with a comparatively dense population on a plateau reaching to 11,000 feet (3500 meters) or more, though its coastal belt, being healthful, dry, and fairly well supplied with irrigation streams from the Andes, is better developed than any other similar district in tropical America.[1256] In Bolivia, 72 per cent of the total population live at an altitude of 6000 to 14,000 feet, while five out of the nine most densely peopled provinces lie at elevations over 11,000 feet.[1257] [See map page 9.]

From Mexico to central Chile, the heavy rains from the trade-winds clothe the slopes with dense forests, except on the lee side of the high Andean wall of Peru and Chile, and reduce much of the piedmont to malarial swamp and jungle. The discouragement to primitive tillage found in the unequal fight with a tropical forest, the dryer, more bracing and healthful climate of the high intermontane basins, their favorable conditions for agriculture by irrigation, and their naturally defined location stimulating to early cultural development, all combined to concentrate the population of prehistoric America upon the high valleys and plateaus. In historic times these centers have persisted, because the civilized or semi-civilized districts could be best exploited by the Spanish conquerors and especially because they yielded rich mineral wealth. Furthermore, the white population which has subsequently invaded tropical America has to a predominant degree reinforced the native plateau populations, while the imported negroes and mulattoes have sought the more congenial climatic conditions found in the hot lowlands.

[Sidenote: Increasing density with motive of protection.]

The relativity of geographical advantages in different historical periods warns us against assuming in all times a sparsity of population in mountains, even when the adjoining lowlands offer many attractions of climate and soil. In ages of incessant warfare, when the motive of safety has strongly influenced distribution of population, protected mountain sites have attracted settlement from the exposed plains, and thus increased the relative density of population on the steep slopes. The corrugated plateau of Armenia and Kurdistan, located on the uneasy political frontier of Russia, Persia and Asiatic Turkey, exposed for centuries to nomadic invasion from the east, shows a sparser population on its broad intermontane plains than on the surrounding ranges. Security makes the latter the choicer places of residence. Hence they are held by the overbearing and marauding Kurds, late-comers into the land, while the older and numerically weaker Armenians cower down on the lower levels.[1258] Here is an inversion of the usual order. The militantly stronger intruders, with no taste for agriculture, have seized the safer and commanding position on the hills, descending in winter with their cattle and horses to pasture and prey upon field and granary of the valley folk, whose better soil is a questionable advantage.

[Sidenote: Motive of protection in primitive peoples.]

Instances of this sort, rare in modern times, because of of general economic and social progress, multiply when we go into the history of primitive or ancient peoples. The Cherokee Indians of the Southern Appalachians, surrounded by powerful neighbors in the Chickasaws, Creeks and the encroaching whites of the seaboard colonies, attacked by war parties of Shawnees and Iroquois from the north, located the bulk of their nation in the mountains. The Overhill and Middle towns, numbering together thirty-three and situated wholly in the mountains, comprised four-fifths of their fighting force in 1775, while the nine towns distributed in the flat lands of Georgia and South Carolina were small and unimportant. The Indians themselves distinguished these two divisions of their country, the one as _Otarre_ or mountainous, and the others as _Ayrate_ or low.[1259] Similarly in ancient Gaul the three strongest tribes, the Sequani, Aedui, and Arverni, all had a large mountain nucleus. The Sequani held the Jura range with part of the Saone Valley; the Aedui held the northeast corner of the Central Plateau and some lands on the Saone, while the Arverni inhabited the western and central portion of the same highland. In a period of constant tribal migrations and war, the occupants of these high, protected locations were better able to defend themselves, and they maintained an adequate food supply by holding some of the adjoining lowland. Archaeologists generally agree that in central and southern Italy settlement first took place in the mountains, gradually extending thence down into the plains. The superiority of the upland climate, the more abundant rainfall, the greater security against attack offered by mountain sites, and the excellent soil for agriculture resulting from the geological make-up of the Apennines, all combined to draw thither primitive and later settlement.[1260] [See map page 559.] Similarly in Britain of the Bronze Age, before the peoples of Aryan speech began to swarm over the island, the primitive inhabitants, involved in constant clan or tribal warfare, placed their villages on the hills, and left in the indestructible terraces on their slopes the evidences of a vanished race and an outgrown social order.[1261]

[Sidenote: Geographic conditions affecting density of mountain population.]

The advance of civilization, which brought the ancient pirate-ridden city from the inner edge of the coastal zone down to the wave-washed strand, also drew the hill town down to the plain, and the mountain population from their inaccessible strongholds to the more accessible and productive valleys. These facts contain a hint. The future investigation of archaeological remains in high mountain districts may reveal at considerable elevations the oldest and hence lowest strata of prehistoric development, strata which, in the more attractive valleys, have been obliterated or overlaid by later invasions of peoples and cultures. Ignoring this temporary attraction of population to protected mountain locations in ages of persistent warfare, we find that a comparison of many countries reveals a decreasing food supply and decreasing density of population, with every increase of height above a certain altitude, except in favored mining regions and in some tropical lands, where better climatic conditions and freedom from malaria distribute settlements far above the steaming and forest-choked lowlands. The density of population in mountains is influenced also by the composition of the soil, which affects its fertility; by the grade and exposure of the slopes, which determine the ease and success of tillage; by the proximity of the highlands to teeming centers of lowland population, and by the general economic development of the people.

In Great Britain, the sparsest population is found in the sterile highland moors of Scotland, where the county of Sutherland has only 11 inhabitants to the square mile, Inverness only 20.[1262] These figures reveal also the remoteness of a far northern location. In the southern half of the island the sparsest populations are found in the Welsh county of Radnor, with 49 to the square mile, and in English Westmoreland with 85, both of them mountain regions, but reflecting in their larger figures their close proximity to the teeming industrial centers of South Wales and Lancashire respectively. In France the most thinly settled _departements_ are Basses-Alpes with 43 to the square mile and Hautes-Alpes with 50, which again owe even these figures in part to their situation on the margin of the densely populated valley of the middle Rhone. [See map page 559.] Norway, almost wholly a mountain country, averages only 18 souls to the square mile. Less than a thousand square miles of its territory are under cultivation, and these are distributed in small deltas at the heads of the fiords, in low strips here and there along its western coasts, or in the openings of its mountain valleys to the southeast. Here too is massed the larger part of its inhabitants. A barren granitic soil, unfavorable zonal location, excessive rainfall, paucity of level land, leaving the "upright farm" predominant, and remoteness from any thickly settled areas, together with the resulting enormous emigration, have combined to keep down Norway's population.

[Sidenote: Sparsity of population in the Alps.]

If we turn to Switzerland, a country poor in the resources of its land but rich in the resourcefulness of its people, we find a high average density, 218 to the square mile; but this is due to the surprising industrial development of the marginal plains, which show in the Canton of Geneva 1356 to the square mile, and in Canton Zurich 705, while the rugged upland of Graubuenden (Grisons) shows only 38 to the square mile, Uri only 48, and Wallis (Valais) only 59. How limited is the food supply of the country is evident from the fact that only 2400 square miles, or fifteen per cent. of its area, can be ranked as arable land, fit for garden, orchard or grain field, while a larger proportion, or twenty-eight per cent. is made wholly useless by watercourses, glaciers, rock and detritus. One half of the entire country lies above the region where agriculture is possible. In the Cantons of Uri and Valais, more than half the area is absolutely unproductive, scarcely less in the Grisons, and a third even in sunny Ticino.[1263] The three strictly Alpine provinces of Austria, Tyrol, Salzburg and Carinthia, reproduce approximately these geographic conditions. Nearly half of their area is uninhabited, and only one-seventh consists of arable land. In consequence they support only 75 inhabitants to the square mile, while just outside the mountains, in the piedmont or Alpine foreland, this density is doubled.[1264] Many tracts of the Carpathians, especially about the sources of the Theiss and Pruth and the wooded mountain borders of Transylvania, are among the most sparsely inhabited parts of Europe.[1265] Japan, ridged by steep volcanic ranges, drenched by mountain-born rains, strewn with detritus from plunging torrents, can cultivate only 15.7 per cent. of its area, and is forced to leave 59 per cent. in forest reserves.[1266]

[Sidenote: Terrace agriculture.]

These figures tell of the hard conditions of life characteristic of most mountain regions. Population under normal circumstances settles in the narrow valleys between the ranges and along the borders of their drainage stream. Soon, however, the food supply becomes inadequate for the growing numbers, so that artificial means have to be employed to expand the area of arable land. The soil on the mountain slopes is so thin that it yields only a scanty return to the labor of tillage. Moreover, under the operations of ploughing and harrowing, it is exposed to the danger of washing; so that after a few croppings the underlying rock of the mountain side may be laid bare, and all that was valuable in the quondam field deposited in the valley as silt or swept away to enrich the distant delta of the nearest trunk river.

To obviate this difficulty and to secure the desired increase of arable land, mountain peoples the world over have resorted to terrace agriculture. This means hand-made fields. Parallel walls, one above the other, are constructed on horizontal lines across the face of the steep slopes, and the intervals between are filled with earth, carried thither in baskets on the peasants' backs. The soil must be constantly renewed and enriched by manure in the same way, and the masonry of the retaining walls kept in repair. Whenever possible these costly terraced fields are located by preference on southward facing slopes, where the tilt of the land makes the fields catch the rays of the sun almost at right angles and thus counteracts the chill of the higher altitude, while the mountain behind protects the growing crops from cold northern winds. Good arable land, being limited in amount, commands a high price; and especially do choice terraced fields in vine-growing countries, since they make the best vineyards. Such fields in Switzerland will bring from $300 to $2,000 an acre, and are estimated to produce annually two bottles of wine for every square foot.[1267]

[Sidenote: Geographical distribution.]

Terrace agriculture, rare in new countries, in the more densely populated Old World is widely distributed in mountainous areas. In Germany, where it is nearly identical with the culture of the vine, it is found along the steep slopes overlooking the valley of the Moselle and the Rhine; also in the Vosges Mountains, the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura, to the limited altitude in which the vine will flourish in these northern regions. In the Alps it is widespread, and not confined to the culture of the vine. The traveler passing along the upper Rhone through the sunny Canton of Valais follows these terraced fields almost as far as Fiesch (altitude 3458 feet), beyond which agriculture proper becomes more and more restricted on account of the elevation, and passes rapidly into the mere hay-making of a pastoral community. Between Leak and Sierre, not only the mountain sides, but also the steep gravel hills constituting the old terminal moraine deposited by the receding Rhone glacier across the valley floor, are terraced to their very tops.

Terrace cultivation prevails in the mountains of Italy; it is utilized not only for the vine, but for olives, maize, oats, hemp, rye and flax. On the gentler declivities of the Apennines, the terraced walls are wider apart and lower than on the steep slopes of the Ligurian Apennines and along the Riviera of the Maritime Alps, where the mountains rise abruptly from the margin of the sea.[1268] Careful and laborious terrace cultivation has produced in Italy a class of superior gardeners. The Genoese are famous for their skill in this sort of culture. The men from the Apennine plateau of the Abruzzi readily find positions in the lowlands as expert gardeners.[1269]

[Sidenote: Terrace culture of the Saracens.]

The Saracens of Spain in the tenth century converted every mountain slope into a succession of green terraces. They built walls of heavy masonry, and brought water, loam, and fertilizing materials from great distances. The slopes of Granada back of Malaga and Almeria were covered with vineyards. Every foot of land susceptible of cultivation was turned to account, every drop of water from the ill-timed winter rains was conserved for the growing season. The application of intelligence and labor to tillage enabled the Hispano-Arab provinces to support a dense population.[1270] These Saracen cultivators had come from the severest training school in all Eurasia. Where the arid tableland of Arabia is buttressed on the southwestern front by high coast ranges (6000 to 10,500 feet or 2000 to 3200 meters) is Yemen, rich in its soil of disintegrated trap rock, adequately watered by the dash of the southwest monsoons against its towering ridges; but practically the whole country is atilt. Consequently the mountains have been terraced from the base often up to 6000 feet. The country presents the aspect of vast agricultural amphitheaters, in which the narrow paths of ancient paving zigzag up and up through successive zones of production. Here is a wide range of fruits--oranges, lemons, figs, dates, bananas and coffee; then apricots, apples, plums, grapes, quinces, peaches, together with grains of various zonal distribution, such as millet, maize, wheat and barley. The terrace walls are from five to eight feet high, but toward the top of the mountains they often increase to fifteen feet. Though laid without mortar, they are kept in perfect repair. Reservoirs filled with water from the two rainy seasons, supply the irrigation channels.[1271] In the narrow valleys of the Nejd plateau in central Arabia and on the mountain slopes of Oman are found the same irrigated gardens and terraced plantations. This laborious tillage underlay the prosperity of the ancient Sabaean monarchy of Yemen, as it explains the population of 35,000 souls who occupy the modern capital of Sanaa, located at an altitude of 7600 feet (2317 meters).[1272]

[Sidenote: In the Himalayas.]

Turning eastward, we find terrace agriculture widely distributed in Himalayan lands. The steep mountain sides of the Vale of Kashmir are cultivated thus to a considerable height. The terraces are irrigated by contour channels constructed along the hillsides, which bring the water for miles from distant snow-fed streams. Their shelf-like fields are green with fruit orchards and almond groves, with vineyards and grain fields.[1273] The terraced slopes about the Himalayan hill-station of Simla (elevation 7100 to 8000 feet) feed the summer population of English, who there take refuge from the deadly heat of the plains. The mountain sections of the native states of Nepal and Bhutan present the view of slopes cut into gigantic stairs, each step a field of waving rice kept saturated by irrigating streams from abundant mountain springs. Farther north, where Himalayas and Hindu Kush meet, terrace agriculture is combined with irrigation in the high Gilgit valleys, and farther still along that mere gash running down from the Pamir dome, called the Hunza Valley. Here live the once lawless robber tribes of the Hunzas and Nagaris, whose conquest cost the British a dangerous and expensive campaign in 1892, but whose extensive terraces of irrigated fields and evidences of skillful tillage gave the whole country an appearance of civilization strangely at variance with the barbarous character of its inhabitants.[1274]

[Sidenote: In Tibet and China.]

North of the outer Himalayan range, near the sources of the Indus and Sutlej rivers in Ladak or Western Tibet, this same form of cultivation has been resorted to by the retarded and isolated Mongolian inhabitants. Here at an altitude of 11,000 feet or more (3354 meters), along mountain ranges of primitive rock yielding only a scant and sterile soil, terraces are laboriously constructed; their surfaces are manured with burnt remains of animal excrements, which must first serve as fuel in this timberless land before they are applied to the ground. In this stronghold of Buddhism almost every lamasery has its terraced fields yielding good crops of grain and fruit.[1275] In the densely populated Sze Chuan province of western China, cultivation has climbed from the fertile basins of the Min and upper Yangtze rivers far up the surrounding mountains, where it is carried on terraces to the foot of vertical cliffs.[1276] Farther north where the mountain province of Shensi occupies the rise of land from the Chinese lowlands to the central highlands of Asia, terraces planted with wheat or other grains cover the mountain slopes.[1277]

[Sidenote: In ancient Peru.]

Terrace tillage is rare in new countries of extensive plains, like the United States and Canada, where the level lands still suffice for the agricultural needs of the people; but in the confined mountain basins and valleys which made up the Inca's territory in ancient Peru, every available natural field was utilized for cultivation, and terraces brought the obstinate mountain sides under the dominion of the Andean peasant. They were constructed, a hundred or more in number, rising 1000 or 1500 feet above the floor of the highland valley, contracting in width as they rose, till the uppermost one was a narrow shelf only two feet broad. These were extended by communal labor year after year, with increase of population, just as to-day in Java and the neighboring islands, and became the property of the Inca. Streams from the higher slopes were conducted in canals and distributed from terrace to terrace, to irrigate and fertilize. These terraces therefore yielded the best crops of potatoes, maize and pulse. The cultivable area was further extended by floating gardens, consisting of rafts covered with earth, which floated on the surface of lakes.[1278] They existed in ancient Mexico also,[1279] and are used to-day in the lakes and streams of Tibet and Kashmir[1280] and the rivers of overcrowded China.

[Sidenote: Terrace agriculture in mountainous islands.]

Mountainous islands, born of volcanic forces or the partial submergence of coastal ranges, have steep surfaces and scant lowlands. Their inhabitants command limited area at best. Driven to agriculture by their isolation, drawn to it by the favorable oceanic climate, such islands develop terrace tillage in its most pronounced form. On the precipitous pitch of Teneriffe, every particle of alluvial soil is collected to make gardens. Long lines of camels, laden with boxes of earth, may be seen coming almost daily into the town of Santa Cruz, bringing soil for the terraces.[1281] This is desperate agriculture. Irrigated terraces scar the steep slopes of many Polynesian islands.[1282] They are highly developed among the Malay Battaks of Sumatra, especially for rice culture.[1283] In Java, Bali and Lombok they reach a perfection hardly equalled elsewhere in the world. In Java they begin at an altitude of 1000 feet, cutting main and branch valleys into amphitheaters, and covering hundreds of square miles.[1284] On the volcanic slopes of Lombok the terrace plots vary from many acres to a few square yards, according to the grade, while a complete system of irrigation uses every brook to water the terraces. Here as in Java the work began at a very early period, when it was probably introduced among the native Malays by Brahmans from India.[1285] Japan, two-thirds of whose area is mountainous, has terraced its steep valley walls often up to 2000 feet or more, and utilized every patch of ground susceptible of tillage.[1286]

[Sidenote: Among mountain savages.]

A mountain environment often occasions a forced development in the form of agriculture among peoples who otherwise still linger in a low stage of barbarism or savagery. The wild, head-hunting Igorots, inhabiting the Cordilleras of north central Luzon, have levelled the face of their mountains into a series of platforms, held by retaining walls from twenty to thirty feet high. On these they cultivate upland rice at an altitude of 5000 feet. The Igorot province of Bontoc contains valleys in which every available foot of land is terraced for rice, and which present artificial landscapes vividly recalling Japan. Labor is the heritage of each inhabitant. Every man, woman and child down to ten years of age shares in the work of providing food.[1287] Africa shows parallel cases. The Angoss people, a savage negro tribe who occupy part of the Murchison Range in northern Nigeria, have mapped out all their sloping land into little terraces, sometimes only a foot or two wide. One of their peaks, 4135 feet high, has its plateau top covered with populous villages, owing to the protection of the site, and every inch of its slope cut into terraces planted with millet and guinea corn.[1288] A more primitive form of this tillage is found in the country of the Marunga negroes, who occupy the steep western face of the rift valley filled by Lake Tanganyika. Here Cameron found the surface not regularly terraced, but retaining walls of loose stones disposed at intervals, which served to hold the soil in place, without greatly altering the natural slope. The scene recalled the terraced heights of Switzerland, and the people working there looked like flies on a wall.[1289] In the semi-arid country of Sudanese Darfur, where only the mountain districts are well watered and thickly populated, small terraces for grain and melons cover all the slopes.[1290]

[Sidenote: Fertilizing]

Mountain agriculture is necessarily laborious. The paucity of arable land precludes the possibility of letting fields lie fallow. These, to prevent exhaustion, must be constantly and abundantly fertilized, all the more as conditions of excessive subaerial denudation found in the steep slope and usual heavy rainfall of mountains, as well as possible glacial scouring of the land in the past, have greatly attenuated the layer of soil called upon to support plant life. The Swiss or Tyrolese farmer cherishes his manure pile as at once source and badge of his wealth. After harvest it is carted or carried in baskets not only to the terraces, but also to the wide alluvial fan that grows his oats and rye, to his meadows and hay fields. Both in Mexico and Peru the soil received a dressing of poudrette. Manuring was most extensive where population was densest, as in the isolated mountain valleys opening out upon the desert coast of Peru. Every kind of organic refuse was utilized, and fish was buried with the kernels of maize as a fertilizer. The deposits of guano found on the headlands and off-shore islands were used from the remotest times. Different guano beds were assigned to the several provinces, and the breeding places of the birds were protected by law.[1291] Ashes and decayed wood were employed for the same purpose, or plants were dug into the soil, while human manure was in Mexico a marketable commodity as in China.[1292]

[Sidenote: Economy of level land for houses and villages.]

In all mountain regions where population has begun to press upon the meager limits of subsistence, level land and soil are at a premium. In ancient Peru space was begrudged for the dead.[1293] Cities covered considerable space on the roomy intermontane plateaus; but in the narrow lateral valleys, houses and temples were built on rocks, in order to reserve every fertile spot for agriculture.[1294] The traveler notices the same thing throughout the Alps. Compact villages cling to the mountain sides, leaving the alluvial hem of the stream or level glacial terrace free for the much needed fields. Only in broad longitudinal valleys, like that of Andermatt, do the settlements complacently spread out their skirts, or on wide alluvial fans where transverse valleys debouch upon the plains. The mountaineers of the Crimea construct their houses against the precipices, excavating into their face and building up the front, with stones, and thus reserve the gentler slopes for vineyards and gardens.[1295] In the Kangra, Kumaon, and Garhwal districts of the British Himalayas, the large Indian villages of the plains give place to small hamlets or detached homesteads, scattered here and there wherever occasional patches of soil on a hillside or in a narrow valley offer hope of sustenance. These hamlets or dwellings are located on the sides of the mountains, because level spots which can be irrigated must be reserved for rice fields.[1296] The high site is also freer from malaria.

[Sidenote: Perpendicular villages]

In the high Himalayan province of Ladak or Western Tibet, this principle of land economy reaches a climax. All settlement is on the perpendicular. The abrupt mountain sides are honey-combed with tombs, villages and Buddhist lamaseries in the detached localities where population occurs. A pleasure walk through one of these Tibetan towns means a climb by steep flights of steps hewn out of the rock, varied by a saunter up ladders, where the sheer face of a cliff must be surmounted to reach the houses on a ledge above.[1297] Pictures of these recall forcibly the cliff-dwellings of the Pueblo Indians. Even the important market city of Leh covers the lower slope of the mountain at an altitude of 11,500 feet, and from its height overlooks the cultivated fields in the sandy valley bed below, made fertile by irrigating streams from debouching canons.[1298] The Ladak villages always shun the plains. The desire to economize level arable land does not alone dictate this choice of sites, however; the motive of protection against inundation, when the snows melt and the streams swell, and also, to some degree, against hostile attack, is an additional factor. In the mountainous parts of overcrowded China, again, the food problem is the dominant motive. In the rugged highland province of Shensi, a village of several hundred people covers only a few acres, and rises in closely packed tiers of houses against the mountain side.[1299] In the wilder, half-conquered parts of Sze Chuan the villages crown the lower peaks, cling to the base of the mountains, or are perched on ledges of rock overlooking the gorges. Among the steep cliffs bordering the upper Yangtze, occupied chiefly by the timid, displaced Mantze aborigines, at an altitude of 10,000 feet, small platforms resting on beams projecting from the sheer mountain face support minute houses, whose backs burrow into the cliff behind. The small children are tied to the door post, to keep them from falling into the millet field below. The house is accessible only by bolts driven into the cliff. Above and below is the farm--small patches of tilled soil, often not larger than a bath towel, to which the cultivator lowers himself by a rope.[1300] Here life hovers on the brink of death and despair.

[Sidenote: Mountain pastures and stock-raising.]

Paucity of arable land in mountain regions leads to the utilization of the untillable slopes for stock grazing. This industry is always a valuable ally to mountain agriculture on account of the manure which it yields; but in high altitudes, where the steepness or rockiness of the soil, cold and the brevity of the growing season restrict or eliminate cereal crops, it becomes the dominant occupation of the inhabitants, while agriculture takes a subordinate place, limited to the production of hay and fodder for the winter feeding of the stock. Above the line of tree growth flourish the natural summer pastures up to the border of perpetual snow; and just below lies a zone which, if cleared of its forests, supports a thick carpet of grass and herbage, though too cold to ripen grain.

The high pastures are particularly nourishing. Cows feeding here in the Alps give better milk than the "home" or valley cows, though a smaller quantity. Sheep and goats do equally well, but swine are profitable only as a by-product, to utilize the refuse of the cheese and butter industry. The area of these pastures far exceeds that of arable land in mountain regions. In Switzerland they comprise about 27 per cent. of the total productive area; hay meadows 24 per cent., but fields and gardens only 20 per cent.[1301] In the Austrian province of Salzburg, pastures make up 13.3 per cent., hay meadows 34.5 per cent., and tilled fields only 11.7 per cent. of the total productive area. In the Tyrol the figures are much the same.[1302] Since Norway has over 67 per cent. of its total area in bare mountains, snow fields, bogs and lakes, it is not surprising to find only 7.6 per cent. in pastures, 2.2 per cent. in meadows, and 0.7 per cent. in grain fields; but here the pastures are ten times the arable area.[1303] The season of the summer feeding on the grass lands is short. In the so-called High Alps it frequently lasts only six or seven weeks, in the Grisons at most thirteen weeks[1304] and in Norway from two to three months.[1305]

High mountain regions, practically restricted to this _Graswirthschaft_, soon reach their maximum of prosperity and population. The amount of hay secured for the winter feeding limits the number of cattle, and the number of the cattle, through their manure, fixes the valley hay supply. Alpine pastures cannot be enlarged, and they may be reduced by accidents of nature, such as landslides, devastating torrents, or advance of ice fields or glaciers. They cannot be improved by capital and labor, and they may deteriorate chemically by exhaustion. The constant export of butter and cheese from Alpine pastures in recent times, without substitution by any fertilizer beyond the local manure, has caused the diminution of phosphoric acid in the soil and hence impoverishment. Canton Glarus has shown a steady decline since 1630 in the number of cows which its mountain pastures can support.[1306] Many other Alpine districts show the same deterioration.

[Sidenote: Mountain herdsman and shepherds.]

The remoteness of these highland pastures from the permanent villages necessitates _Sennenwirthschaft_, or the maintenance of out-farms and shepherds on the mountains during the grazing season. This involves a semi-nomadic existence for such inhabitants as serve as herdmen. In June, as soon as the high pastures begin to grow green, cattle, sheep and goats ascend step by step in the wake of summer, as she climbs the slope, and they return in autumn to the valleys. There they feed on the stubble of hay and grain fields, till the increasing cold confines them to their low stables. The hut of the _Senner_ or _Saeter_, as the herdsman is variously called in Switzerland and Norway, consists of a living room and a smaller apartment for making butter and cheese, while against the steep slope is a rude stone shelter for the cattle and goats. The predominance of summer pastures has made cattle-raising a conspicuous part of agriculture in the Alps and in Norway. In many parts of Switzerland, cattle are called "wares" and the word cheese is used as a synonym for food, as we use bread. A Swiss peasant who has a reputation for cheese making is popular with the girls.[1307] Here even Cupid turns dairy expert.

[Sidenote: Communal ownership of mountain pastures.]

Since it is scarcely practicable to divide these highland pastures, they have generally remained communal property, whether in Norway,[1308] Switzerland, the Bavarian Alps, the British Himalayan districts,[1309] Nepal and Bhutan,[1310] or Kashmir.[1311] In Europe their use is generally regulated. As a rule, a Swiss villager may keep on the _Allmende_ during the summer as many head of cattle as he is able to stall-feed during the winter. Any in excess of this number must be paid for at a fixed rate to the village or commune treasury.[1312] Hay-sheds and herdsmen's huts mark these districts of temporary occupation near the altitude limits of human life throughout Europe. In Asia, likewise, are to be found small villages, inhabited only in summer by herdsmen tending their flocks. Such is the hamlet of Minemerg, located at an altitude of about 8000 feet at the southern entrance to the Borzil Pass over the Western Himalayas, and Sonamerg (altitude 8650 feet or 2640 meters) just below the Zogi La Pass, both of them surrounded by rich meadows on the northern rim of the Vale of Kashmir.[1313]

The utilization of mountain pastures for stock raising is almost universal. In the arid highlands of Central Asia, it is the essential supplement to the pastoral nomadism of the steppes and deserts, and to the limited sedentary agriculture found along the irrigated piedmont slopes. Here and elsewhere the animal raised varies widely-the llama and vicuna in Peru, which thrive best at 10,000 to 13,000 feet elevation, and multiply rapidly on the _ichu_ or coarse grass which clothes the slopes of the higher Andes up to snow line; sheep, goats, yaks and herds of dzo, a useful hybrid between yak and cow, in the highland districts of Sze Chuan. Here the Mantze mountaineers lock their houses and leave their villages deserted, while they camp with their herds on the high pastures at 10,000 feet or more.[1314] Only economical, ingenious Japan has failed to develop stock raising, though mountains comprise two-thirds of its area. The explanation has often been sought in Buddhism, which inhibits the use of animal food; but this religious rule probably found ready acceptance in Japan, just because the paucity of animal food made its observance easy, for the fish industry of the Empire never suffered from the inhibition. The reason is probably to be sought elsewhere. The native grass of Japan, which relentlessly crowds out all imported grazing crops, is a bamboo grass with sharp, hard, serrated edges, and is said to cut the entrails of horses and sheep.[1315]

[Sidenote: Haymaking in high mountains.]

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 altitude, 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. Grass 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 grass 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 grass, 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 grass. 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 grass 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 grass; 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 altitudes 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 Wuertenberg 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 altitudes 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 quantity 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, brass, 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 glass 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 butter, 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 assumes 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 quantities 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 Witwatersrand. 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]