130 THE PULSE OF ASIA
acter of the women. They are obliged to rely more or less upon themselves, and to take the initiative at times. In their care of the flocks and herds, it often happens that the men are all far away throughout the whole day, and at certain seasons, when the grass must be cut in the valleys, many of them are away for several days. At such times, the women are responsible for everything. I have come to an encampment of seven or eight tents where no one was left except a few girls and one or two old women. The smaller girls, not unnaturally, were afraid of us; but the newly wedded wife of the chief man, a pretty girl of sixteen, entertained us most graciously, and by the time that her husband and the other men arrived, had supper ready for them and us. A veiled village woman would have screamed and run away at our approach. Besides all this, the occupation of the men with the horses and larger animals leaves to the women the care of the sheep when the flocks are driven home at evening. And, finally, it is always the wife who has the responsibility of taking down and packing the kibitka, and setting it up in a new place, while the husband takes care of the herds. All these differences between the women of Tian Shan and those of the villages are the direct results of nomadism, and all of them tend to make the Khirghiz wife stronger, more capable, and more self-reliant, and hence a better mother.
In view of all this, is it going too far to say that the relatively free, warm-hearted, and affectionate spirit shown by the Khirghiz in their relation to one another is, in part at least, a geographic fact, the result of physical surroundings ? In Karategin, at the eastern corner of Bokhara, I
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