In the meantime Nelson, scouring the seas in search of the French fleet, came upon it near the coast of Egypt, and attacked and scattered it at the Battle of the Nile (Oct., 1798). The Turks, aware that Bonaparte’s descent on Egypt was prompted by his desire for self-aggrandisement, felt called upon to declare war on the French in Egypt (1799). Hereupon Bonaparte, with nearly the whole of his army, marched along the desert road to Gaza and took Jaffa by assault, but a few months later he was in full retreat. A Turkish army soon afterwards reached Aboukir and joined forces with the British fleet, but Bonaparte inflicted a crushing defeat on them. He then left Egypt leaving his army in charge of General Kléber. But a further expedition was launched by the Turk, one detachment of troops was landed at Damietta, another under Yussuf Pasha approached by the El Arish road. They were defeated by the French, but General Kléber soon afterwards was assassinated (June, 1808). The English now effected a landing at Aboukir (March, 1801), and the French, after some struggles, evacuated the country. In Egypt itself confusion reigned. The Mameluks were regaining their influence, when Mehemed Ali († 1849), the leader of an Albanian corps, secured the adherence of the sheykhs and claimed the Pashalik with the support of the French. An expedition made by the British to oppose him in 1807 miscarried. In 1811 he caused a massacre of the Mameluks and extended his influence by carrying war into Arabia and invading Syria. The interference of the English reduced, but did not break, his power. In 1841 he secured the hereditary sovereignty of Egypt. The period of upheaval naturally reacted on the desert and rendered travelling unsafe. Seetzen visited the convent under Russian orders and found the road dangerous. There were twenty-five monks in the convent, who longed for the end of the Turkish government and the establishment of European influence in Cairo.[305] Seetzen was murdered in Syria on a later journey. Again the traveller Boutin was in Serabit in 1811, where he scrawled his name on a stone in the temple where Rüppell found it. Boutin also was murdered in Syria. Burckhardt travelled in the disguise of a Bedawyn and repeatedly visited Sinai, and the convent (1816, 1822). Both Rüppell and Burckhardt travelled in the interest of geography.