of mountain chiefs.]

Small size is sometimes coupled with monarchical rule, degenerating
occasionally into despotism among aggressive robber tribes. The
inaccessible Hunza Valley is occupied on opposite sides of its deep
gorge by two rival states, the Hunzas and the Nagaris, whose combined
population amounts to scarcely 25,000 souls. Hostile to each other, they
unite only to resist an invading force. While the Hunza Thum is a
tyrant, the Nagari ruler has little voice in the government. The
Tibeto-Burman hill folk of the eastern Himalayas are divided into clans,
and concede a mild authority to a chief who rules a group of clan
villages, but only rarely is able to secure power over a larger
district. The Khasia Hills of Assam are broken up into twenty-three
petty states, each under its own Rajah or chief, who has, however,
little authority beyond the administration of justice.[1389]

Everywhere in mountain regions appears this repugnance to centralized
authority. Protection by environment obviates the necessity of
protection through combination. The spirit of clan exclusiveness, the
absence of a common national sentiment, characterize equally the
tribesmen of mountainous Albania, of Persian Luristan,[1390] and highland
Kurdistan. Along the rugged upheaved area which forms the western
boundary of India from the Khaibar Pass to the sea, British officials
have had to negotiate with the native Pathan and Baluch "jirgahs,"
assemblies of the chief men of the countless clans into which the tribes
are divided, as the only visible form of authority tolerated.[1391]
Combination must be voluntary and of a type to exact a modicum of
submission. These requirements are best answered by the confederation,
which may gradually assume a stable and elaborate form among an
advanced people like the Swiss; or it may constitute a loose yet
effective union, as in the famous Samnite confederacy of the central
Apennines; or a temporary league like that of the ancient Arcadians, or
the group of confederated sheiks of Bellad el Kobail, the "Country of
the Highlanders" in mountainous Yemen, who in 1790 established a
republican form of union for defense against their more powerful
neighbors.[1392]

[Sidenote: Mountain isolation and differentiation.]

The power of mountains to protect makes them asylums of refuge for
displaced peoples. This fact explains the confused ethnology which often
characterizes these isolated regions, especially when they