This may seem strange, Bonola Bey conceded, yet he considered the situation understandable, given the political circumstances of Egypt upon Muhammad Alï’s ascension to power. As a result of the internecine wars that had ravaged Egypt in the aftermath of the French invasion (1798–1801), the new dynasty found that Egypt “had fallen into a state close to barbarity. The Egyptians, absorbed in the struggle of progres- sive transformation that was being accomplished under the power of their sovereigns, found themselves insufficiently prepared to undertake scientific explorations.” Because of this, Muhammad Alï sought recourse in the geographic experience of Europeans very early, one result of which was the first official map of Kordofan, in the western part of the Sudan, drawn by M. Ruppel in 1829.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 191