CHAPTER VII.
THE BATTLE OF TOURS, A.D. 732.
The events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbours of Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran. — Gibbon.
The broad tract of champaign country which intervenes between the cities of Poictiers and Tours, is principally composed of a succession of rich pasture-lands, which are traversed and fertilized by the Cher, the Creuse, the Vienne, the Claine, the Indre, and other tributaries of the river Loire. Here and there, the ground swells into picturesque eminences; and occasionally a belt of forest land, a brown heath, or a clustering series of vineyards breaks the monotony of the wide-spread meadows; but the general character of the land is that of a grassy plain, and it seems naturally adapted for the evolutions of numerous armies, especially of those vast bodies of cavalry, which principally decided the fate of nations during the centuries that followed the downfall
