THE CHANTOS Q*5
in more specific relation to the Chantos. These people, he says, "are the essence of imperturbable mediocrity. They live in a land where — in the places in which anything at all can be grown — the necessaries of life can be produced easily and plentifully. Their mountain barriers shield them from severe outside competition, and they lead a careless, easy, apathetic existence. . . . They are a race of cultivators and small shopkeepers, and nothing more. . . . It is their destiny, shut away here from the rest of the world, to lead a dull, spiritless, but easy and perhaps happy life, which they allow nothing to disturb."
I have made a list of the qualities of the Chantos which most impressed me, and which I find most frequently mentioned in the writings of others. Among the good qualities, the chief are gentleness, good temper, hospitality, courtesy, patience, contentment, democracy, religious tolerance, and industry; among the bad are timidity, dishonesty, stupidity, provincialism, childishness, lack of initiative, lack of curiosity, indifference to the suffering of others, and immorality. The list might be extended, but so far as it goes, it represents the general consensus of opinion among writers on Chinese Turkestan. It is noticeable that strong characteristics, whether good or bad, are absent. Determination, courage, aggressiveness, insolence, undue curiosity, violence, fanaticism, and the like, are almost unknown among the Chantos. Neither their good nor their bad traits demand any great exertion of will or purpose. On the one hand, there is no public spirit; almost no one exerts himself for the good of the people as a whole. On the other hand, crimes of violence, and even theft, are very rare.
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