The art of a country like Japan, where wood, silk, and copper are abundant and easily worked, and where stone cannot readily be procured, is bound to be very different from that of a country like Greece, where easily worked marble is far more common than good lumber, and where there is little silk and no metals. The Japanese build wooden temples with pointed roofs, and place in them paintings on silk and Buddhas cast in bronze, while the Greeks built flat-roofed temples of stone and filled them with marble statues. Not only the materials used in art, but the subjects show the influence of environ ment. In Japan venerable scraggly pine trees and symmetrical volcanoes are among the chief subjects of art, while in Egypt the lotus, a water lily of that valley, became the main ornament of architecture. Similarly the acanthus leaf was characteristic of the art of Greece where that bold handsome plant thrives in the dry soil. Even in the most progressive countries the art reflects local conditions.
(5) How the Higher Needs Respond to Energy.—Lastly, the degree of perfection to which a country carries its government, education, science, religion, and art, depends largely on the energy of the people; and that, as we have just seen, is influenced more by climate than by any other one factor. Hence good-government clubs, educational societies, scientific associations, philanthropic organizations, and musical clubs are vastly more numerous in a country like Denmark, with a stimulating climate, than in a tropical country like Siam.
An Example of Human Geography: Khirghiz Nomads of Cen tral Asia.—The nature of human geography may be illustrated by an example. Some of the Khirghiz of Central Asia are wandering herds men, or pastoral nomads, who live in the great Tian Shan Plateau of Central Asia in summer, and descend to the valleys and the lowland plain in winter. They are densely ignorant and superstitious. So low are they in the scale of civilization that they know almost nothing of manufacturing, science, and art. Their furniture consists of little except bags, saddles, and quilts. They eat their meals with their fingers from the common dish while sitting cross-legged on the bare ground or on the woolen rugs which are almost the only goods that they manufacture. Often their diet for months consists of sour milk, cheese, and meat with almost no bread and no vegetables or fruit of any description. According to our standards the Khirghiz 60- are dirty, lazy, and unprogressive Those who give up their usual mode of life and settle down to live permanently among the Russians of Siberia, become still worse, for they begin to deteriorate not only in character, but in health. To offset these unfortunate traits the
Nomadic Khirghiz are delightfully hospitable, quite honest, and so bold and hardy that one cannot help admiring them.
How Their Location Isolates the Khirghiz.—In saying that the Khirghiz live in Central Asia we have already stated the main fact as to their location. It is necessary to add that they live in the "middle latitudes," since the center of that vast continent is midway from the equator to the pole. Nowhere in all the world is there a region more remote from the sea and from all the broadening influ ences which the great waters carry with them. On the south the great deserts of Chinese Turkestan and the huge desolate plateau of Tibet separate the Khirghiz from India and all outside influences in that direction. On the east and west they are also shut in by deserts so that they come in contact only with nomads like them selves—Mongols on one side and Turkomans on the other. Only toward the north, where the desert is less severe, do the Khirghiz . come in contact with a civilized people, the Russians, but even that contact is slight. Thus isolation is the keynote of the Khirghiz location.
How Plains, Mountains, and Plateaus Encompass the Khirghiz. Broad plains to the north and high mountains and vast plateaus to the south are the land forms among which the Khirghiz have their home. It is a wonderful experience to start in the broad plain and ride southward on horseback, with the Khirghiz. At first the plain is almost as level as the sea, and one's vision is limited only by the un broken horizon, except where distant blue mountains break the sky line far to the south. The next day's march brings us among low hills; then the hills become so high and numerous that the trail winds up a valley instead of going straight toward its destination. Only after several days' riding, however, does it enter a real mountain valley, where the cliffs rise steeply on each side and the trail can scarcely find a foothold. When there is no room at the bottom of the valley, it must zigzag up a steep rocky slope, where a misstep or an unnoticed bit of ice sometimes sends a horse tumbling hun dreds of feet into the river. Finally, the valley opens out into a fine plateau, where broad, green basin-shaped plains lie pleasantly spread out at heights of 8000 to 12,000 feet. On every side rise snow covered mountains, wonderfully tinted with blue or pink, and studded here and there with glaciers. Such are the wandering places of our Khirghiz nomads.