Previous to the British occupation the country was ruled, as it is now, by a noble dynasty of Albanian princes, whose founder was set upon the throne by the aid of Turkish and Albanian troops.  From the beginning of the sixteenth century until that time Egypt had been ruled by the Ottoman Government, the Turk having replaced the Circassian and other foreign “Mamlukes” who had held the country by the aid of foreign troops since the middle of the thirteenth century.  For a hundred years previous to the Mamluke rule Egypt had been in the hands of the Syrian and Arabian dynasty founded by Saladdin.  The Fatimides, a North African dynasty, governed the country before the advent of Saladdin, this family having entered Egypt under their general, Jauhar, who was of Greek origin.  In the ninth century Ahmed ibn Tulun, a Turk, governed the land with the aid of a foreign garrison, his rule being succeeded by the Ikhshidi dynasty of foreigners.  Ahmed had captured Egypt from the Byzantines who had held it since the days of the Roman occupation.  Previous to the Romans the Ptolemies, a Greek family, had governed the Nile Valley with the help of foreign troops.  The Ptolemies had followed close upon the Greek occupation, the Greeks having replaced the Persians as rulers of Egypt.  The Persian occupation had been preceded by an Egyptian dynasty which had been kept on the throne by Greek and other foreign garrisons.  Previous to this there had been a Persian occupation, which had followed a short period of native rule under foreign influence.  We then come back to the Assyrian conquest which had followed the Ethiopian rule.  Libyan kings had held the country before the Ethiopian conquest.  The XXIst and XXth Dynasties preceded the Libyans, and here, in a disgraceful period of corrupt government, a series of so-called native kings are met with.  Foreigners, however, swarmed in the country at the time, foreign troops were constantly used, and the Pharaohs themselves were of semi-foreign origin.  One now comes back to the early XIXth and XVIIIth Dynasties which, although largely tinged with foreign blood, may be said to have been Egyptian families.  Before the rise of the XVIIIth Dynasty the country was in foreign hands for the long period which had followed the fall of the XIIth Dynasty, the classical period of Egyptian history (about the twentieth century B.C.), when there were no rivals to be feared.  Thus the Egyptians may be said to have been subject to foreign occupation for nearly four thousand years, with the exception of the strong native rule of the XVIIIth Dynasty, the semi-native rule of the three succeeding dynasties, and a few brief periods of chaotic government in later times; and this is the information which the archaeologist has to give to the statesman and politician.  It is a story of continual conquest, of foreign occupations following one upon another, of revolts and massacres, of rapid retributions and punishments.  It is the story of a nation which, however ably it may govern itself in the future, has only once in four thousand years successfully done so in the past.