The book in which Pococke describes his adventures and researches[27] is also in advance of its times, and in printing and illustrations might well have been credited to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Pococke devoted himself mainly to making plans and drawings of Egyptian monuments, Coptic churches, and Muhammadan mosques. He collected a great many Greek inscriptions (amongst others, the interesting Greek and Latin sentences scratched on the legs of Memnon), and besides many plans and drawings of buildings which illustrate his book, are some excellent pictures of plants characteristic of Egypt. Especially noteworthy are the botanical drawings of the branching Hyphæne palm. These etchings would not be out of place in the most modern work on Africa. Pococke ascended the Nile to the First Cataract, then the limit of Turkish rule. [Illustration: THE BRANCHING _Hyphæne_ PALM (_Hyphæne thebaica_). Taken from interior of Nasr Fort (R. Sobat).] One amusing feature in Pococke’s sumptuous volumes is the number of dedications to British statesmen and notabilities of that date. The book in general is dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, “Groom of the Stole to His Majesty George II.” His careful map of the Nile from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean is dedicated to Lord Carteret, “First Secretary to the King.” The map of Cairo and its environs (a very interesting one with reference to the modern growth of the city) is inscribed to the Earl of Stafford. These dedications, however, seem to foreshadow a growing interest on the part of English noblemen in the problem of the Nile,--an interest which, as will now be shown, played such a part in the expedition of Bruce.