The eighteenth century closed with some advance in the direction of the Nile Quest. At any rate interest in the Nile problem had revived in Europe. The publication at the beginning of the century, in an English translation from the Portuguese, of the travels undertaken by the Jesuit Fathers in Abyssinia,--the fact that an English statesman (Lord Halifax) under the second George made it possible for Bruce to start on his great journeys, and, lastly, the creation of the African Association, testified to the commencement of this interest in England. In France the question had been receiving attention from the end of the seventeenth century, but mainly for political reasons. It had occurred to Louis XIV. and to the ministers of his successor that Egypt, so loosely held by the Turk, would be an admirable base from which to effect the conquest of India. These ideas were not lost on Napoleon Bonaparte, and the eighteenth century closes with the invasion of Egypt by the French, an event as wonderful to the full and as far-reaching in its results as the conquest of the same country by the Greeks under Alexander the Great 2131 years previously. Alexander’s conquest of Egypt from the Persians, or rather from the several native Egyptian dynasties who were ruling under Persian suzerainty, put an end to the régime of Ancient Egypt and Hellenised the countries of the Lower Nile and of Abyssinia. The invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte broke the power of the Moslem, and prepared the way for the administration of Egypt by Europeans and Christians. Rome profited by the exploits of the Macedonians; England has succeeded to the task which was begun with such amazing brilliance by Frenchmen. [Illustration: MAP OF AFRICA BY WILLIAMSON, LONDON, 1800. Giving results of Browne’s journey to Darfur, French exploration of lower Nile, and much Arab information from Egypt, North Africa, and Senegambia.] CHAPTER IX MUHAMMAD ALI OPENS UP THE WHITE NILE