THE CHANTOS 235
bad the season, the increasing flood will at least support the fields upon which he mainly depends. With the surplus water of midsummer he can raise all the fruit and vegetables that he wants, and can have a grove of poplars for timber, some walnut trees for nuts, mulberries for silk-worms, and fields of alfalfa for hay, of cotton for clothes, and of corn to supplement the wheat. Meanwhile, without care on his part, the surrounding zone of vegetation is producing various plants which in winter provide him with abundant firewood for himself and with grazing for the animals which, perhaps, have spent the summer in the rich pastures among the mountains. However poor he may be, he can always raise a little more than the bare necessities of life; he can vary his diet with abundant milk and some meat ; and he can have plenty of fuel and warm clothes of quilted cotton or sheep-skin.
The Chanto peasant, unless he is also a shepherd, has no reason to travel beyond the neighboring bazaar. His friends are near at hand. In summer, when the desert on every side is hot and deadly, his garden and the shady village streets are cool and pleasant. In winter, when it is cold and dreary outside, his house is well heated and comfortable. There is nothing to tempt him out of his small oasis; nothing to waken him or to arouse determined effort. His work in summer may be hard for a time, but it rarely hurries him, or causes him anxiety. He knows that the water will be turned into his ditch on such a day : his crops must be cut at such a time, and all the family must work, but bad weather never seriously interrupts the harvest, and a delay of a day or two will do no harm. And so year after year, and generation after generation, the Chanto goes his care-free, monotonous
IIIFカラー高解像度
