THE BANDIT’S WIFE
The effect of life in the hills is clearly seen in this picture by Leopold Robert, who painted it after living among the “Brigands of the Mountains” and studying their wild and picturesque life. The association of peoples with mountains develops a rugged character and gives that strength and independence which mountain races have displayed in history.
Height of land obstructs historical movements and lengthens their course. The Romans remained at the foot of the Alps for two centuries before they made their way into them, forced to it by the constant invasion of Alpine robbers who descended from the heights as if sallying forth from secure fortresses. Long before this the Romans had encircled the western side of the Alps and had begun to turn the eastern side. The colonies on the Atlantic coast of America, the predecessors of the United States, had been in existence for almost two hundred years before they passed the Alleghanies; and it is certain that this damming up of the powerful movement towards the west, which arose later, had a furthering influence on the economic and political development of the young states. The passes of the Pyrenees occur at about two-thirds of the distance from the level ground to the summits of the mountains; in the Alps the elevation of the gorges is but one-half or one-third that of the mountain tops; hence, as a whole, the Alps are more easy of access than the Pyrenees. The Colorado plateau is a greater obstacle than the Sierra Nevada range in California, which, although of much greater elevation, slopes gently and is interspersed with broad valleys. It was due rather to the forests than to the moderate elevation of the central mountains of Germany that their settlement was delayed until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The influence of the broad, desert tableland of the great basin in separating the western from the Mississippi states is greater than that of the Rocky Mountains with peaks more than twelve thousand feet in height. The extensive glacial formations and the sterility of the mountains in Scandinavia have held Sweden and Norway asunder, and at the same time have permitted the Lapps and their herds of reindeer to force themselves in between like a wedge. The broad, elevated steppes of Central Tien-schan enabled the Kirghese to cross the mountains with their herds and to spread abroad in all directions.
Little Worlds on the Heights
In such cases the natives of tablelands and mountainous regions, who inhabit little worlds of their own on the heights, themselves contribute not a little towards rendering it difficult to pass through their countries. The most striking example of this is Central Asia with its nomadic races, whose influence in separating the great coast-nations of the east, west, and south from one another has been far more potent than that of the land itself. And these nomads are a direct product of the climate and the soil of this greatest plateau in the world. The dry tablelands of North America, from the Sierra Madre in Mexico to Atacama in the south, were in early times inhabited by closely related races, having more or less similar institutions and customs. A like effect of life on plateaus, shown in the Caucasus Mountains, that have preserved their character as a barrier against both Romans and Persians, and have been crossed by the Russians only in recent times, points to a further reason for the sundering influence of the wall-like position of mountains between the steppes and the sea. Phenomena similar to those observed in Central Asia and in North America occur on a smaller scale in every mountainous country—extensive uninhabited tablelands in which man and free nature come into direct contact with each other. Independent development is thus assured to the dwellers on mountains, and to their states a preponderance of territory over population. The political importance of Switzerland is not owing to its three millions of inhabitants, but to the impossibility of occupying one-fourth of the Alps. The position—almost that of a Great Power—held by Switzerland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was due to the union of this element of strength (and the fact that Switzerland, by reason of its situation, includes many of the most important commercial routes in Europe) with the mountain-bred spirit of liberty and independence of its people. In other respects, too, mountain states stand pre-eminent among nations—as Tyrol outshone all other Austrian provinces in 1809, so the mountain tribes of the Caucasus were the only Asiatics able to offer any permanent resistance to the advance of the Russians. The broad, rough character of a highland country is an active force; in all mountain wars it has led to the spreading out of armies and to the lengthening of columns.
Mountains the Friends of Weak Nations
The support afforded by mountains to weak nations that without the protection of a great uninhabited region would not have been able to maintain their independence can be likened only to the protection which, as we have seen, is given by the sea. Switzerland has often been compared to the Low Countries; and there is even a still greater resemblance between city cantons such as Basle and Geneva and ports like Hamburg and Lübeck. It was owing to similar reasons that the strongholds of French Protestantism during the sixteenth century were the Cévennes, Berne, and La Rochelle. The protection given by mountains must not be looked upon as of an entirely passive nature, for the rugged nature of mountaineers, and their concentration within small areas where a development is possible, rendering them conscious of independence and assisting them to preserve it, are also a result of life in the highlands. In low-lying countries difference in levels cannot exceed a thousand feet; and, as the variations in conformation are correspondingly small, the lowlands offer fewer hindrances to historical movements than do rivers, seas, and marshes—thus there is a greater opportunity for the development of such movements upon the plains. Consequently there is a rapid diffusion of races over extensive regions whose boundaries are determined by area rather than by conformation.
Effect of Mountains on People
Lowlands hasten historical movements. There is no trace of the retarding and protecting effects of the highlands in lands where, as Labu said of Saxony, a nation dwells together with its enemies on the same boundless level. Nomadism is the form of civilisation characteristic of broad plains and extensive tablelands. But the Germanic races of history, a great part of which were no longer nomads, exhibited a hastening in their movement towards the west when they reached the lowlands; for they appeared on the lower Rhine at an earlier time than on the upper Rhine, delayed in their wanderings towards the latter by the mountainous, broken routes. Long after the Celts had disappeared from the lowlands, when their memory only was preserved in the names of hills and rivers, they still continued to exist in the protected mountain regions of Bohemia. In like manner, in later times, the Slavs maintained themselves in natural strongholds after they had vanished from the plains of Northern Germany. Compare the conquest of Siberia, accomplished in a century, with the endless struggles in the Caucasus. And what lowland country can show remnants of people equivalent to those of the Caucasus?