40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



even from an Italian point of view, while on the island of Cor- 

 sica a peculiar state of agrarian difficulties has counteracted the 

 influence of climate. Many of the campanitas or small terrace- 

 plains have been so utterly exhausted that the available means 

 of irrigation fail to redeem the impoverished soil, while a large 

 percentage of the productive area is in the hands of the con- 

 vents, which reserve the right of tenure for their old retainers. 

 Combined with the straits of that land-famine, the over-increase 

 of population became such an unqualified evil that the common 

 sense of the peasants originated a system of ostracism, attaching 

 infamy and social excommunication to the preliminaries as well 

 as to the results of marriage before a specified age. In France 

 the enormous burden of taxation has practically led to an iden- 

 tical result, and the prevalence of a mode of existence which Ed- 

 mond About calls the " celibacy of prudence " is no longer con- 

 fined to the larger cities. 



The late marriage of mountaineers, too, may be partly ex- 

 plained by their instinctive love of independence. The sterile 

 soil of a highland region necessitates far and frequent excur- 

 sions in quest of the means of subsistence, and the unencum- 

 bered privilege of personal freedom thus became often a condi- 

 tion of survival. With a marmot and a hand-organ, if not with 

 a marmot alone, the young Savoyard perambulates Europe from 

 end to end till he has accumulated the equivalent of an Alpine 

 competency. The monteros of the upper Apennines roam Italy 

 like gypsies, ready to do any man's harvest - work. Young 

 Scotchmen cross the Tweed or even the Atlantic before they 

 venture to run the risks of matrimony on the precarious re- 

 sources of a Highland moor. The scantness of population, and 

 the consequent distance from neighbor to neighbor, help to train 

 highlanders in the habits of self-help, and thus form that instinct 

 of independence which has generally justified the proud motto 

 of West Virginia. 



A similar cause, however, would seem to have produced a 

 similar result among all true nomads, who likewise are obliged to 



" Make each day earn the daily right to live." 

 But while the patriotism of the Arabs and Turkomans (as well 

 as of the originally nomadic Hebrews) takes the form of an 

 exportable national pride, a sort of hygienic intuition appears to 

 teach mountaineers the superiority of their native climate and 

 make them averse to a permanent change of habitation. High- 

 landers, though the stoutest defenders of their native soil, have 

 therefore rarely engaged in wars of conquest ; and the most ex- 

 pansive nations, to use a Bismarckian euphuism, were generally 

 lowlanders — Prussians, Russians, Arabs, Mongols, Goths, and 

 Tartars. We might add Romans, for the tide of conquest which 



