RETREAT OF MAN

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 114, 10 November 1934, Page 16

RETREAT OF MAN

A EIVIEEA BATTLE

STRUGGLERS WHO GIVE UP

I I took a friend up into the moun I tains today to sec a "lost world" of the BivieTa, the -very existenco of which does not seem to be suspected by the foieigneis along the Cote d'Azur, sa\s a filter in the Man ohostei Guardian This extreme southeastern corner ot Trance was c de to her bj the Italians within the memoiy ot old inhabitants still living Teudil uarfaie has raged over it spor adically singe 'the dawn of history I The Saracens and-the Genoese, tinmen l(ft t Piedmont and the men'ot ProVence, the sturdy, stocky little.felloes of the tiny republics ot'Aipnaco, Boquebrune, iand Menton fl tlic vassals of the Counts of Ventjmigha, \ and the Gnmaldi Princes ' have l growled and wrangled and fought and bif and scratched over every mile olMt Pirate band? from Algiers lia\c raided it and occupied hdrtß of at f(sr centuries. Troops trom Sardinia ana^aplesj and "even, an Aus tnsin amiyy,hayo marched and cquntermarcled among its rocky We took the early morning bus up to "the ridge of th,e last di-vide before the-present Italian frontier. Thence we began our scramble down to the coastxthrough. the terraces of the tillers of tho,soil wJio .have 'given u P< the struggle ?irat catch"j our hare, was the old recipe: . The laborious folk who lived her? once had. first tp catch their soil on" tho stcdp sides Of, the wild inmblo of mountains, grubbing it out ot nooks and corners, among the welter, of weather split fragments of rock — nmdflmcii dust frcm down b«low andfallen brown leaves which had scudded "along before the gates of perhaps two millions of years. r i EVIDENCE/OF THE SEA. Millions of jears? you repeat, sceptically. Well, here is food for thought; tile Mediterranean, .like all warm, salt, lake-seas? is sotting shallower. When .thfpeiple fere 'living wTiose skeletons ■icu will see m glas,stopped coffins m theW^me»wf\2SjQflfr-years ago, m the j grotto" Of 'Gnmaldi, just inside the i Italian frontier, the sea came ( up to their"door," Today sea level is 30f below. I can show you secluded little I beaches on the west side of Cap Mar- j tin of the same level 4 as Gnmaldi eav , em, which were left high , and dry] 125,000 years ago, rock pools, wateri\ orn pebbles, base eroded buttresses of limestone— everything is still there but the ripples of tho Mediterranean, which are now 30ft lower. Again, I can show jou boulder-, we passed to day above the 2000 ft level, containing'the samo shells one now finds on the seashore, cockles, and small scallops These boulders are chunks of blue clay which were at the bottom of the Meditenanean. If the sea took ' 25,000 years'to drop 30ft, how long did it take to drop, moro than 2000 ft 1 i GRUBBING OUT THE SOIL.- I 1 Yes, first tho miuntainecrs grubbed i out their soil with their triangularbladed spades, used» lite pickaxes. That js the way that tho earliest prehistonc men dug, with tho deer-antler picks'which you will find in museums. Then they- spread it over a terrace shelf a 'few icet wtdc. The rocks and. boulders were separated from the soil and skilfully formed into a cementless wait, usually some sre ±eet high; dropping to s>thc next terrace. EveTy trickling'I'spring and cvciy gully thiough which storm water rushes tiom time to time wps led by aqueduct or little clayjlined'irngation ditch to the cultivated tei races, uo enable the crops and vines to suivn c the recurring draughts fion. each mid-May till mid September. , In and out of the mountain sides, up and down ravines we passed all day.' We counted tho tieis of terraces creeping up each mount until they had to halt at the foot of sheer precipices —w ell over a thousand miles of terrace, had they all been -joined in one line — and practically all derelict Agncultuie has changed' The people no longer live on the land up above, no longer are self-sufficing. They must move closer to the maikets down along the Rmeran coast. Ko cunning aiti ficers, no carpcnteis, no l>6otmakers nor .weavers of wool and linen remain up aboie, to,baitei then indispensible sciviccs tor. flour, milk, "md. butter fowl and "fruit and -\ eget-ible V. cok by week mountainoars give up the stiugglo. Evciy time Igo up there I find moie derelict farms, chinning little places in exfjuisitc settings ot rock and waterfall and olive grove Today found a gioup of little farms abandoned Only i stealthy little cat ; sjippmg in and out under barndoors' remained axl' v tkaces gone. But 'this*"latest,phase of,man's retreat i's'dnly 70 years old. Seventy years ago tho population^up above was still fir 100 small to cultivate, much the greater part ot the terraces, even had it migrated from its~villages: It (armed lust the p.itehcs around isolated houses or near hamlet and village. Tho 1000 miles of derelict tenaces had long been derelict. Now, a mile of properly tended terrfice* garden and orchard, in , this supeib climate, piodiices a year's food for fifty persons What traces-remain of these tens of thousands of simultanexhrs • tillers Of the soil, whot f too, gave upithe stiugglo or were "wiped out-by foo or, disease' -None. ,•> Church rocords show that these mountains wcte thickly populated here and" there in- the- time <of our Alfred tlie Groat. Thpir bouses have gone,? apart. from rnip remains of ruined forts , Their grave)mds )inu gone, their money, their motalwaip. In cfbes with enhances blocked by landslides, in underground caches in this dry, sunbaked'soil, and in niches of the rocks gieat quantities of thpir bones (probnblv \wth their ieu cilery) and their metal implements and weapons and their coins msut be hidden w.ell. prescn pd Tlip Bn icran Babylon must have many a wonderful hoard to reveal up there, after 'landslides, to the chance passerby.