The inhabitants of these wild but wealthy valleys are of many tribes,
but of similar character and condition. The abundant crops which a warm
sun and copious rains raise from a fertile soil, support a numerous
population in a state of warlike leisure. Except at the times of sowing
and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout
the land. Tribe wars with tribe. The people of one valley fight with
those of the next. To the quarrels of communities are added the combats
of individuals. Khan assails khan, each supported by his retainers.
Every tribesman has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man's hand is
against the other, and all against the stranger.

Nor are these struggles conducted with the weapons which usually belong
to the races of such development. To the ferocity of the Zulu are added
the craft of the Redskin and the marksmanship of the Boer. The world
is presented with that grim spectacle, "the strength of civilisation
without its mercy." At a thousand yards the traveller falls wounded
by the well-aimed bullet of a breech-loading rifle. His assailant,
approaching, hacks him to death with the ferocity of a South-Sea
Islander. The weapons of the nineteenth century are in the hands of the
savages of the Stone Age.

Every influence, every motive, that provokes the spirit of murder among
men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence. The
strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherit in all human beings, has
in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour.
That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the
sword--the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives
to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds
of men--stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder,
always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of
opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the
south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old
Spain, is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica.

In such a state of society, all property is held directly by main force.
Every man is a soldier. Either he is the retainer of some khan--the
man-at-arms of some feudal baron as it were--or he is a unit in the
armed force of his village--the burgher of mediaeval history. In such
surroundings we may without difficulty trace the rise and fall