During the larger part of the eighteenth century hardly any progress was made with the exploration of Africa. The west coast was still a resort of traders for slaves and gold, but very little attempt was made even to acquire further territory. In the middle of the century, however, the Turkish dislike of intruders was somewhat allayed, owing partly to the growth of the coffee trade, and it became more easy for travellers to enter Egypt. In 1770 James Bruce started on the task, which he had been anxious to undertake for many years, of searching for the Nile sources. He was courteously received by the ruler of Abyssinia, and after finding and mapping the source of the Blue Nile, he traced it to its junction with the White Nile at Khartum. On his return he was disgusted when it was proved to him by D’Anville (whose map, based on a critical judgment of data, was considerably more correct than Bruce’s) that he had been anticipated by the Portuguese Jesuits. He delayed the publication of his results for seventeen years, and when they appeared, though they constitute a remarkable description of Abyssinia and its inhabitants, they were universally disbelieved. Towards the end of the century two causes operated for the revival of interest in African affairs--firstly, the foundation of the African Association in 1788, and, secondly, the removal by Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt of the obstacles placed in the way of travellers by Moslem fanatics. In 1795 Mungo Park, a Scotchman, started under the auspices of the African Association to explore the Niger. He travelled up the Gambia River, and after extraordinary difficulties reached the Niger at Sebu, and traced its course for three hundred miles. He had been so long away that he had been given up for dead, and his exploits, carried through with such success, aroused great enthusiasm. Unhappily, his second journey, undertaken in 1805, ended in disaster; he and all who were with him except one guide perished, after descending the Niger for about one thousand miles towards the coast, and only just failing to solve the problem of its outflow. In 1798 Francisco de Lacerda, a Portuguese explorer, lost his life on the Zambezi, and early in the nineteenth century Africa was actually crossed for the first time (so far as is known), by two Portuguese traders, from Mozambique to the west coast.