Excerpt from England, Egypt, and the Sudan The long period of external peace which succeeded to the last conquest was mainly due to the neglect of Egypt by the great Powers - engaged during the sixteenth and seven teenth centuries in wars of religion, wars of colonial rivalry, and wars of dynastic dispute; while the gradual decline in the strength and menace of her Ottoman suzerain was already beginning to draw the jealous and anxious attention of the European States to a point farther to the East. Otherwise, the growing weakness of Turkey and the practical subordina tion of her nominal viceroys to the Mameluke Beys who governed the various Egyptian provinces, collected the taxes, commanded the militia, and merely paid tribute to the Pasha, would doubtless have earlier merited an attempt from one or other of the great Powers to wrest this rich and historic domain of the Ottoman from his gradually failing hands. Late in the eighteenth century the time arrived. The greatest and greediest of all the conquerors of the world, looking eastward for a new empire, and for a basis of attack upon the eastern dominion of his most formidable foe, cast the eye of desire upon Egypt, and there and then began the rivalry for its possession, or, failing possession, for paramount influence therein, which has arrayed France and England against each other ever since. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.