Charles' signal victory over the Saracen invaders proved to be the
turning-point in the Moslem career of conquest. The question
whether the _Koran_ or the Bible, the Crescent or the Cross,
Mahomet or Christ, should rule Europe and the western world was
decided forever upon the bloody field of Tours.
The broad tract of champaign country which intervenes between the cities
of Poitiers 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 widespread
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 of Rome and preceded the consolidation of the modern European
powers.
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