were brought back numbers of the sturdy Negroes, who were drilled into some kind of disciplined force by French officers at Assuan. Then came the war with Turkey, which nearly resulted in Muhammad Ali capturing Constantinople. But this led to the intervention of Europe, and the ambition of Muhammad Ali was confined within the limits of Egypt and the Sudan. In 1839 the ruler of Egypt despatched the first important conquering and exploring expedition up the White Nile. It was accompanied by a French officer, Thibaut,[38] who had become a Muhammadan. This expedition reached as far south as north latitude 6° 30′. In 1841 a second expedition, which was accompanied by two Frenchmen (D’Arnaud and Sabatier), and by a German, Ferdinand Werne, reached the vicinity of Gondokoro in north latitude 4° 42′. Werne wrote an interesting and scientific account of this second expedition. His map of the White Nile from Khartum to Gondokoro is a remarkably good piece of work. A third expedition under the same Turkish commander (Selim Bimbashi), and accompanied by D’Arnaud, Sabatier, and Thibaut also reached Gondokoro. All these expeditions were made in sailing boats, and those that reached farthest were stopped by the same obstacles,--the rapids at Gondokoro. As far back as 1820 steamers had been introduced onto the Nile between the Delta and the First Cataract, mainly through French enterprise. Some of these steamers even plied between Cairo and Korosko. In 1846 the first steamboat was put together on the White Nile above Khartum. In 1845 a Frenchman (Brun-Rollet) ascended the White Nile in a sailing vessel and founded a trading post in the Kich country. [Illustration: FERDINAND WERNE.] Between 1827 and 1830 a German, Prokesch von Osten, had made a correct survey of the Nile between Assuan and Wadi Halfa, and in the later forties this survey was continued under Baron von Müller as far south as Ambukol in Dongola. During the forties great interest concerning the Egyptian Sudan had arisen in Austria. Austria was not suspected of political views in the direction of Egypt, and therefore no doubt Muhammad Ali and his successors were more disposed to encourage Austrian missionaries than those of France or England. The Pope created a Bishop of Khartum in 1849, and Austrian missionaries[39] had founded stations on the White Nile as far distant as Gondokoro by 1850, in which year Dr. Ignatz Knoblecher, an Austrian missionary, extended his explorations a few miles beyond Gondokoro to Mount Logwek. A little, very little, information was collected as to the course of the Nile above that seventy miles of rapids which cuts off the navigation of the river between Nimule on the south and Gondokoro on the north. A vague story was collected from the Bari to the effect that this great river came from a considerable distance southwards and issued from a lake. This, no doubt, was a correct hint as to the existence of Lake Albert Nyanza. But at this point the information stopped.