CULTIVATION IN HILL COUNTRY 95 



steadfast amid yellow fields, harbour those whose 

 sheltered, sunny lives seem far removed from the 

 petty, mundane worries which ever crowd upon 

 the harassed voyager. 



So it comes about that as the sliding landscape 

 moves before his eyes, it seems the most natural 

 and enjoyable thing in the world, an occupation 

 of which he would never tire, that he should make 

 hay in the warm sunshine, or walk in flowered 

 and leafy lanes, with no thought for the morrow. 

 Romance is but a playing with possibilities, which, 

 as realities, lose much of their charm. All of 

 which dissertation has arisen from a contemplation 

 of cultivation in the low countries. Among the 

 hills it is another matter. Artificiality seems out 

 of place and the futility of man's ordered efforts 

 when opposed to nature is palpable and obvious. 

 Relentless forces are at work ; their operation 

 becomes apparent. Man ceases to labour for a 

 space, and, like the resistless sea, Nature effaces 

 his puny scrapings and scratchings with effortless 

 ease. Soon all that is left to remind one that 

 a fellow atom once toiled and struggled are a few 

 green mounds, a few half-obliterated scars. As 

 on many a Highland moor, purple heather covers 

 the stones and knolls about which men toiled and 

 laboured, so about the sloping summits of the 

 bare hills of Kansu, you see here and there straight 

 terraced lines. They are all that remain of old 

 efforts at cultivation. Dominated by them are 

 little conical heaps in the valley which endure 

 for a short generation or so, and then give place 

 to the resting-places of the sons and grandsons 

 of those who lie beneath. Hills terraced and 

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