Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/312

 290 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Rhine- atrous worshin. Some canals of communication between the Danube canal. ^ AD. 793] rivers, the Saon eand the Meuse, the Rhine and the Danube, were faintly attempted.^^^ Their execution would have vivified the empire; and more cost and labour were often wasted in the structure of a cathedral. ™uM*a°d' ^^ ^^^ retrace the outlines of this geographical picture, it will enemies be sccn that the empire of the Franks extended, between east and west, from the Ebro to the Elbe or Vistula; between the north and south, from the duchy of Beneventum to the river Eyder, the perpetual boundary of Germany and Denmark. The personal and political importance of Charlemagne was magnified by the distress and division of the rest of Europe. The islands of Great Britain and Ireland were disputed by a crowd of princes of Saxon or Scottish origin; and, after the loss of Spain, the Christian and Gothic kingdom of Alphonso the Chaste was confined to the narrow range of the Asturian mountains. These petty sovereigns revered the power or virtue of the Carlovingian monarch, implored the honour and support of his alliance, and styled him their common parent, the sole and supreme emperor of the West.il'-' He maintained a more equal intercourse with the caliph Harun al Rashid,i-" whose dominion stretched from Africa to India, and accepted from his ambassadors a tent, a •water-clock, an elephant, and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. It is not easy to conceive the private friendship of a Frank and an Arab, who were strangers to each other's person, and lan- guage, and religion; but their public correspondence was founded on vanity, and their remote situation left no room for a competition of interest. 1-1 Two-thirds of the Western empire 11*^ The junction of the Rhine and Danube was undertaken only for the service of the Pannonian war (Gaillard, Vie de Charlemagne, torn. ii. p. 312-315). The canal, which would have been only two leagues in length, and of which some traces are still extant in Swabia, was interrupted by excessive rains, military avocations, and superstitious fears (Schsepflin, Hist, de I'Acad^mie des Inscriptions, torn, xviii. p. 256. Molimina fiuviorum, &c. jungendorum, p. 59-62). 11'' See Eginhard, c. 16, and Gaillard, torn. ii. p. 361-385, who mentions, with a loose reference, the intercourse of Charlemagne and Egbert, the emperor's gift of his own sword, and the modest answer of his Saxon disciple. The anecdote, if genuine, would have adorned our English histories. [On the relations of Charles with England, see Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 484.5^^. /Freeman, Norman Conquest, i. Appendix D.] 120 The correspondence is mentioned only in the French annals, and the Orientals are ignorant of the caliph's friendship for the Christian dog — a polite appellation, which Harun bestows on the emperoi of the Greeks. 1-1 [It lay in the nature of things (as Mr. Freeman was fond of pointing out) that the Western Emperor should be hostile to his neighbour the Emir (afterwards Caliph) of Cordova and friendly to the Caliph of Fiagdad, while his rival the Eastern Emperor was hostile to the Caliph of Bagdad and friendly to the distant ruler of Cordova.]