Читать книгу The Story of the Hills: A Book About Mountains for General Readers - H. N. Hutchinson - Страница 7

Once upon a time these were fertile pastures, on which dwelt a "senn." He grew rich, so that none could match him in wealth; but at the same time he grew proud and haughty, and spurned both the laws of Nature and the commandments of God. He was so foolishly fond of his mistress that he paved the way from the châlet to the byre with cheeses, lest she should soil her feet, and cared so little for his mother that when she lay at his door fainting with hunger, he offered her only milk to drink in which he had thrown the foulest refuse. Righteously indignant, she turned away, calling upon Heaven to punish such an insult. Before she reached her home, the rocks and ice had descended, crushing beneath them her wicked son, his mistress, and possessions.

In the neighbourhood of Monte Rosa there is a tradition that a valley exists in the heart of that mountain the entrance to which has been sealed up by impassable glaciers, though the floor of the "cirque" within is still a rich pasturage. In a certain valley they point out a spring which bursts from the ground, as the outlet of the torrent by which it is watered. Once, said they, a chasseur found the bed of this stream dry, and creeping up its subterranean channel, arrived on the floor of the valley. It was a huntsman's paradise; chamois were there in plenty, bears also, and even bouquetins, wandering over the richest pastures. He retraced his steps to announce the good news; but when he returned again, the waters had resumed their course, and the place has ever since remained inaccessible.

Mountains play a very important part in human history. In the first place, they are natural barriers separating the nations of the world from one another, and tending to keep them confined within certain definite bounds; we say, tending to keep them thus confined, because, as every one knows, these barriers have again and again been surmounted by conquering armies. The rugged Alps could not ward off Hannibal, who made his way through them to march upon the capital of the Roman empire. In like manner Napoleon defied this great natural rampart, made a road through it, and came to Italy. No mountains would seem to be quite impassable; but although liable in the course of ages to be occasionally overrun, they afford good protection and produce a feeling of security.

The Himalayas separate our great Indian empire from that of China; and we do not at present apprehend an invasion from that quarter. The Suliman Mountains divide us from the Afghans, and the great Russian and Persian empires farther west. Still, we know that in the eleventh century a great Mahometan invasion of India took place; our own armies have more than once penetrated to Kabul. Perhaps the common garden wall separating adjacent suburban residences furnishes a suitable illustration of the great natural walls which divide, not households or families, but much larger families than these,—the nations of the world.

Just as unruly boys sometimes climb over the neighbour's wall and play games in a garden which is not their own; or as burglars may surmount these obstacles to their progress, and finding a way into the house by a back door or kitchen window, commence their ravages,—so a neighbouring (but not neighbourly) nation, bent on conquest, may invade some natural garden of the world, such as India, by forcing their way through physical barriers which for ordinary purposes serve to protect those within.

The Thian Shan Mountains divide Russia from China's sphere of influence. The Caucasus Mountains separate Russia from Asia Minor. Austro-Hungary is bounded by the Carpathians, Spain by the Pyrenees. The Alps of Switzerland separate four nations not very friendly to each other; and lastly, in our own country the Cheviot Hills, together with the Tweed, form the boundary between Scotland and England.

Where there are no mountains or hills, rivers sometimes serve as boundaries, but of course they do not answer the purpose so well. Sometimes a nation actually builds a wall for a boundary. Of this the great wall of China and the Roman wall between the Cheviots and the Solway Firth are familiar examples.

In the second place, mountains have always been a refuge and shelter for conquered races; and the primitive tribes who once lived in the plains have been forced by adverse circumstances to take to the hills. This has taken place over and over again.

We know that the Celtic people now living in Brittany, Devonshire, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, though now considerably mixed, are the descendants of the old Celtic inhabitants of France and Britain. But there is a great deal of unwritten history for which we may look in vain to the ordinary sources of information, such as books, and which is only to be read in quite different records,—in antiquities buried up in peat-beds, in bogs, in ruins and ancient forts, or camps; and last but not least, in the names of places, rivers, or mountains. The hills, the valleys, the rivers, are the only writing-tablets on which unlettered nations have been able to inscribe their annals. For this kind of history we must go to the antiquary, and, above all, to the philologist, who tells us the meaning of the names of places, and who the people were who gave the names that we see on our maps. The great advances which have of late years been made in our knowledge of the primeval races of men, or at least of nations but little known in the annals of history, are largely due to the interpretation of the obscure records preserved in local names. The Celtic, the Iberian, the Teutonic, the Scandinavian, and Sclavonic races have thus for the most part made known to us their migrations, conquests, and defeats. And so by studying the names of places, rivers, and hills, as well as by careful collection of works of art, implements, coins, such as may be seen in many a museum, it has been possible to read a great deal of early history which would otherwise have been lost.

Those who have studied these matters say they can trace wave after wave of population which has thus left its mark,—Gaelic, Cymric (or Welsh), Saxon, Anglian, Norwegian, Danish, Norman, and Flemish. Thus it can be proved from the names on the map that almost the whole of England was once Celtic, whereas now the Celts are almost entirely confined to the hills. The Peak of Derbyshire and the mountains of Cumberland retain a greater number of Celtic names than the districts surrounding them; and the hills of Devonshire long served as a barrier to protect the Celts of Cornwall from Anglo-Saxon conquerors.

But even mountain races are often a good deal mixed, and in the Pyrenees we find the descendants of the Iberians, who, a very long time ago, were driven from the lowlands of France and Spain. These Iberians are a very interesting race, of short stature, with long heads, and dark hair and eyes. This old type is to be met with in Wales and the Highlands even in the present day. And so we learn—if these conclusions are sound—that even the Celts in their early days were invaders, and drove before them an older population. This race, it seems, lived in Europe a very long time ago, before the discovery of metals, when people made axes, hammers, and spear-heads out of flints or other stones; and so they are said to belong to "the Stone Age." Their remains are found in many of the caves which of late years have been explored. Possibly the ancient people of Switzerland who lived in wooden houses, erected on piles near the shores of lakes (probably for safety), were also of the same stock.

It is curious to find how people living in separate valleys among the mountains of Switzerland have, in the course of time, become so much unlike their neighbours that they can hardly understand each other's speech, so effectually have the mountains kept them apart. In some districts almost every valley has its separate dialect. Switzerland is only twice the size of Wales, yet the local names are derived from half a dozen different languages, three or four of which are still spoken by the people. In the Alps, too, the same mixture of Celtic with an older Iberian stock has been detected.

A curious reversal of the usual order of things is noticed by the late Dean Stanley in his "Sinai and Palestine." He points out that the Jews took possession of many of the hills of Palestine soon after the invasion under Joshua, but could not drive out the peoples of the plains, because they were better armed, and had chariots of iron in great number. The conquerors in this case kept to the hills; while the Canaanites, Philistines, and other inhabitants of the country retained for a long time their hold of the lower ground.