Far from quenching Europe's interest in the mysteries of the Nile, the arrival of the Rosetta Stone fueled a decades-long obsession with Egypt, Middle Eastern cultures, and 'orientalism.
-- Narrator (Prologue)

Importance: After England emerges victorious from the Napoleonic Wars, it sequestered all of the artifacts under French possession. Among them is the famed Rosetta Stone, and its translation becomes the impetus for the following decades long quest to explore and map the African continent. It is in within this context that Burton and Speke find funding for their campaigns to discover the source of the Nile. Without the public interest in the Rosetta Stone, it is unlikely that such expeditions would have ever gained traction in Great Britain.

To everyone's shock, however, not least of all Rigby's, he had lost that honor to Richard Burton.
-- Narrator (A Blaze of Light)

Importance: Burton knew the Arabic language so well that he considered it to be his native tongue. His...