Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/455

 t THE SUEZ CANAL. 869 for this twofold purpose. Should the riverain tract« of the delta ever be enclosed by a circular artery, this canal will probably be utilised exclusively for irrigation and the local traffic. The firman granting a concession to pierce the isthmus directly from sea to sea, was at last signed in the year 1854. While signing this document, the Sultan Nvas himself incredulous as to the possibility of executing the work, and even among the engineers engaged on the vast undertaking, many were wanting in the confidence required to stimulate their efforts. But Ferdinand de Lesseps, in whose favour the firman had been signed, was a man of strong faith and tenacious will. He was discouraged neither by financial difficulties, nor by faint-hearted friends, nor yet by the secret or avowed opposition of adversaries. Amongst these adversaries was the British Government, fearing the opening of a direct route to India, of which it was not sure of always holding the key. Yet it was compelled in its turn to acknowledge itself vanquished, and on November 17th, 1869, a whole fleet of steamers followed in gay procession, bearers of the Khedive's invited guests from Port Said to Lake Timsah. Fifteen years had sufficed to complete this colossal undertaking. But to bring it to a successful issue, new engineering methods and new mechanical contrivances had to be devised. A sum of nearly £19,000,000, nearly half subscribed in France, had been expended, apart from the numerous substantial services con- tributed by the Egyptian Government, such as concessions of land, the erection of lighthouses, harbour dredgings, pecuniary advances without interest, gangs of labourers under the corvee system, representing at least a capital of some £4,000,000. The number of natives engaged on the works averaged about twenty thousand. This great highway, a veritable marine strait, which is visited by sharks and cetaceans, and where are now intermingled the various flora and fauna of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, presents dimensions which at the time seemed prodigious, but which are already acknowledged to be inadequate. The canal, which is 98 miles long from sea to sea, and from 200 to 330 feet wide between the banks, has a depth nowhere less than 26 feet, and in some places nearly 28 feet. Dredges are constantly engaged, clearing out the sand and mud, which the wash of passing steamers causes to accumulate on the bottom. Without including these subsequent dredgings, which amount to about 21,000,000 cubic feet yearly, the excavations represent a mass estimated at 2,910 millions of cubic feet, equal to a pyramid 1,100 yards square and 830 feet high. From a mere lagoon, Lake Timsah, that is, of the "Crocodiles," from which, however, these animals had long disappeared, has been transformed to an inland aea. The basin of the Bitter Lakes has also received from the Red Sea a volume estimated at seventy billions of cubic feet ; the vast salt-beds formerly occupying this depression are being gradually dissolved under the influence of the currents setting alternately north and south. The canal presents a superb spectacle, especially at EUGisr, between the two lines of dunes rising on either side some 50 feet above the surface. And it is difficult to suppress the feeling of wonder 24— A F.