[Illustration: View of a Merawe temple. (Fac-simile of early engraving.)] The French explorer, accompanying Ismail Pacha in the character of a mineralogist beyond Berber, on a quest for gold-mines, arrived at Shendy. He then went with Letorzec to determine the position of the junction of the Atbara with the Nile; and at Assour, not far from 17 degrees N. lat., he discovered the ruins of an extensive ancient town. It was Meroe. Pressing on in a southerly direction between the 15th and 16th degrees of N. lat., Cailliaud next identified the mouth of the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile, visited the ruins of Saba, the mouth of the Rahad, the ancient Astosaba, Sennaar, the river Gologo, the Fazoele country, and the Toumat, a tributary of the Nile, finally reaching the Singue country between the two branches of the river. Cailliaud was the first explorer to penetrate from the north so near to the equator; Browne had turned back at 16 degrees 10 minutes, Bruce at 11 degrees. To Cailliaud and Letorzec we owe many observations on latitude and longitude, some valuable remarks on the variation of the magnetic needle, and details of the climate, temperature, and nature of the soil, together with a most interesting collection of animals and botanical specimens. Lastly, the travellers made plans of all the monuments beyond the second cataract. [Illustration: The Second Cataract of the Nile.] The two Frenchmen had preluded their discoveries by an excursion to the oasis of Siwah. At the end of 1819 they left Fayum with a few companions, and entered the Libyan desert. In fifteen days, and after a brush with the Arabs, they reached Siwah, having on their way taken measurements of every part of the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and determined, as Browne had done, its exact geographical position. A little later a military expedition was sent to this same oasis, in which Drovetti collected new and very valuable documents supplementing those obtained by Cailliaud and Letorzec. They afterwards visited successively the oasis of Falafre, never before explored by a European, that of Dakel, and Khargh, the chief place of the Theban oasis. The documents collected on this journey were sent to France, to the care of M. Jomard, who founded on them his work called "Voyage a l'Oasis de Siouah." [Illustration: Temple of Jupiter Ammon.] A few years later Edward Ruppell devoted seven or eight years to the exploration of Nubia, Sennaar, Kordofan, and Abyssinia in 1824, he ascended the White Nile for more than sixty leagues above its mouth. Lastly, in 1836 to 1838, Joseph Russegger, superintendent of the Austrian mines, visited the lower portion of the course of the Bahr-el-Abiad. This official journey was followed by the important and successful surveys afterwards made by order of Mehemet Ali in the same regions. CHAPTER III. THE ORIENTAL SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND AMERICAN DISCOVERIES.