England looked coldly on the enterprise. To use the vulgar phrase both literally and metaphorically, she "took no stock" in the Suez Canal, and she sent no royal personage, nor other representative to the opening ceremonies; the only Englishman of official rank who was present was an admiral, whose flag-ship was in the harbor of Port Saïd.
The Emperor Napoleon was wholly unable to leave France at a time so critical; but he sent his fair young empress in his stead. He stayed at Saint-Cloud, and took advantage of her absence to submit to a severe surgical operation. The empress went first to Constantinople, where Sultan Abdul Aziz gave a beautiful fête in her honor, at which she appeared, lovely and all glorious, in amber satin and diamonds. She afterwards proceeded to Egypt as the guest of the khedive, entering Port Saïd Nov. 16, 1869, and returning to Paris on the 5th of December.
EMPRESS EUGÉNIE.
The opening of the canal across the isthmus of Suez, which was in a manner to unite the Eastern with the Western world, caused the eyes of all Christendom to be fixed on Egypt,—the venerable great-grandmother of civilization. The great work had been completed, in spite of Lord Palmerston's sincere conviction, which he lost no opportunity of proclaiming to the world, that it was impossible to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The sea-level, he said, was not the same in the two seas so that the embankments could not be sustained, and drift-sands from the desert would fill the work up rapidly from day to day. Ismaïl Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, had made the tour of Europe, inviting everybody to the opening, from kings and kaisers, empresses and queens, down to members of chambers of commerce and marine insurance companies. Great numbers were to be present, and the Empress Eugénie was to be the Cleopatra of the occasion. But suddenly the khedive was threatened with a serious disappointment: the sultan, his suzerain, wanted to join in the festivities; and if he were present, he must be the chief personage, the khedive would be thrust into a vassal's place, and all his glory, all his pleasure in his fête, would be gone.
The ancient Egyptians, whose attention was much absorbed in waterworks and means of irrigation, had, as far back as the days of Sesostris, conceived the idea of communication between the Nile and the Red Sea. Traces of the canal that they attempted still remain. Pharaoh Necho, in the days of the Prophet Jeremiah, revived the project. Darius and one of the Ptolemies completed the work, but when Egypt sank back into semi-barbarism, the canal was neglected and forgotten. It does not appear, however, that the Pharaohs ever thought of connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The canal of Sesostris and of Pharaoh Necho was a purely local affair, affecting Egyptian commerce alone.
Some modern Egyptian engineers seem first to have conceived the project of a Suez canal; but the man who accomplished it was the engineer and statesman, M. de Lesseps. In spite of all manner of discouragements, he brought the canal to completion, supported throughout by the influence and authority of the khedive. The first thing to be done was to supply the laborers and the new town of Ismaïlia with drinking water, by means of a narrow freshwater canal from the Nile. Till then all fresh water had been brought in tanks from Cairo. Next, a town—called Port Saïd, after the khedive who had first favored the plan of the canal—was built on the Mediterranean. The canal was to run a straight southerly course to Suez. At Ismaïlia, the new city, it would connect with the railroad to Cairo; between Port Saïd and Ismaïlia it would pass through two swampy lakes.
In seven years Port Saïd became a town of ten thousand inhabitants. The total length of the canal is about ninety miles, but more than half of it passes through the lakes, which had to be dredged. The width of the canal is a little over one hundred yards, its depth twenty-six feet. About sixty millions of dollars were expended on its construction and the preliminary works that it entailed,—these last all tending to the benefit and prosperity of Egypt.
The grand opening took place Nov. 16, 1869. The sultan was not present; he had been persuaded out of his fancy to see the sight, and the khedive was left in peace as master of ceremonies. The Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria was there in his yacht, and the Empress Eugénie, the "bright particular star" of the occasion, was on board the French war-steamer "L'Aigle." As "L'Aigle" steamed slowly into the crowded port, all the bands played,—
"Partant pour la Syrie,
Le brave et jeune Dunois,"