Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

The Canals are now lost to sight for several centuries. At last, 644 A.D., they are again rescued from the obscurity into which they had fallen by the Caliph Omar, who repaired, and restored them to use. About a century after his time they were again destroyed.

There was then nothing new in the idea, or in the fact, of a water communication between the two seas. The old Egyptians had fully debated the question of whether it was better to have, or not to have it. If they had thought it advisable to undertake it, they would have engineered it in the completest manner, and on the grandest scale. They, however, rejected the plan from motives of policy. The idea was actually carried out, and through communication kept up by Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Saracens. Apropos, then, to the recent opening of the Suez Canal, we may say that the thing itself is more than two thousand years old: the idea more than three thousand.

That it is direct, that is one hundred miles in length, instead of indirect, which made the navigation nearly double that length, is the difference, and the gain.

The only absolutely new point is that it is a salt water, and not a fresh water Canal; and with respect to this, I think we may feel certain that if old Rameses, or Necho, had engineered it, instead of M. Lesseps, it would not, in this respect, have been as it is. They would have decided in favour of fresh water, because they could then have constructed it at half the cost; and would, furthermore, by so doing, have had a supply of water in the desert, sufficient for reclaiming a vast extent of land, which would have more than repaid the whole cost of construction. Instead of cutting a Canal deep in the desert at an enormous cost, they would, as it were, have laid a Canal on the desert. This they would have done by excavating only to the depth requisite for finding material for its levées, and for the flow of the water which was to be brought to it from some selected point in the river. It is evident that this kind of Canal might have been made wider, and deeper, than the present one at far less cost. The river water would then have filled the ship Canal, just as it now does the sweet-water Canal parallel to it. The sweet-water Canal now reaches Suez. A sweet-water ship-Canal might have done the same. As far as navigation is concerned, the only difference would have been that locks would have been required at the two extremities, such as Darius, and Ptolemy had at Arsinöe. These locks would have been at Suez, and at the southern side of Lake Menzaléh.

But the diminution in the cost of construction, say 8,000,000l., instead of 16,000,000l., would not have been the chief gain: that would have been found in the fact that the Canal would have been a new Nile in a new desert. It would have contained an inexhaustible storage of water to fertilize, and to cover with life, and wealth, a new Egypt. Though, indeed, not new historically; for this would only have been the recovery from the desert of the old Land of Goshen, and the restoration to it, by precisely the same means as of old, of the fertility it had possessed in the days of Jacob and Rameses.

It was natural that the French should have been the most prominent supporters of this scheme. Every Frenchman appeared to come into the world with the idea in his mind that France, by the order and constitution of Nature, was as fully entitled to Egypt as she was to the left bank of the Rhine; and that nothing but an unaccountable combination of envy and stupidity, withheld the human race, especially those to whom these fair portions of the earth belonged, from recognizing the eternal truth, and fitness of this great idea. Here we had a gauge for measuring the moral sense of the educated portion of the French nation. As to the Canal, their idea appears to have been that they were only making improvements in a glorious property, the reversion of which must be theirs. It would give them, too, such a footing in the country, and such materials for the manufacture of pretexts, and claims, that it would enable them, almost at their will, to expedite the advent of the day when the reversion would fall to them.

I heard, while I was in Egypt, that the Imperial charlatan of France had been behaving towards us in the matter of Egypt in the friendly and straightforward manner it appeared he had been behaving in the matter of Belgium. Our discerning friend, and staunch ally, I was told, had been confidentially exhorting the Viceroy to disregard English policy and advice, and to prepare for asserting his independence of the Sultan. Only let Egypt become an independent kingdom, and then there would be a clear field for the realization of the grand French idea M. Guizot declared, some thirty years ago, no Frenchman could ever abandon. Under such circumstances, nothing could be more easy than at any moment to find, in the affairs and management of the Canal, grounds for a quarrel, that is to say, for taking possession of the country: though perhaps the world, taught by history, would predict that the attempt would not succeed. The plan was to have things ready for turning to account, at any moment, any opportunity that might arise.

The catastrophe of the last twelve months would have prevented my making any such remarks as the fore going, were I now thinking of making them for the first time. In that case they would have appeared too much like being wise after the event; and too much, also, like being hard on those who are down. I feel myself, however, at liberty to make them now, for in so doing I am only repeating what I ventured to predict in print four years ago (the fact even then for some years having been manifest to many), that the rôle of the Latin race was played out. People said to me, ‘What can you mean? The French have the largest revenue, and the finest army in Europe, and their military glory is untarnished.’ My answer then was, that the French army appeared to have been changed into a Prætorian guard; and that the French nation appeared to have lost the moral instincts which compact a population into a people. Among those instincts, the sense of right and justice, the absence of which we have just been noticing, holds the first place: without it the formation and maintenance of political society are impossible.

There are three towns on the Canal: Port Saïd, which is almost entirely French; Ismailia, which is so to a great extent; and Suez, which has a French quarter. At these places I heard that the French were far from popular; that they are regarded as arrogant, and illiberal in their dealings with the Arabs they employ; and vicious to a degree which offends even the tolerant natives, who trouble themselves very little about the morality of unbelievers. It would require some familiarity with the life of these places to know how far such accusations are true: they are only set down here because they are current among the non-French part of the population. Certainly, however, at Port Saïd some things are paraded which in most other places an attempt is made to keep out of sight. But Port Saïd is the Wapping of the Canal. This town is built on a reclaimed sand-bar. The hotel is better than one would have expected. The Place, Place Lesseps it is called, is ambitiously large. In some parts of the town the stenches make you feel bad: of course on a low sand-bar there can be no drainage. It seems to do a considerable trade in pilgrims: those we saw were chiefly Russians. On being introduced to the American Consul—he appeared to be an Italian—he offered to show me his garden. It proved well worth seeing. It contained a good collection in a small space, of African, Australian, and Brazilian plants. Many, that with us require almost constant stove-heat, were flowering here, in January, in the open air. Among the inhabitants, as at Ismailia, are to be found many of the (in the East) ubiquitous Greeks.

Ismailia is very preferable every way to Port Saïd. It is in the heart of the desert, and on the shore of a considerable lake. I can imagine a not unprofitable, or over dull, month spent here by a man who finds a pleasure in coming in contact with strange sorts of people; and who also takes an interest in natural history and botany; for the natural history and botany of such a place must be very peculiar. It must, too, be pre-eminently healthy, for it combines the pure air of the desert with that of the sea-shore, for such is now the shore of Lake Timsah. It has a pretty good hotel, a place yclept Champollion, a French bazaar, a promenade, an Arab town, a good house surrounded by a garden belonging to M. Lesseps, and a more ambitious one surrounded by sand, built by the Khedivé, at the time of the opening of the Canal, for the Empress of the French, and his other Royal visitors. Ismailia might also be made the head-quarters for a great deal of very interesting Egyptological inquiry. Within easy distances are Pelusium, the Abaris of the primæval monarchy, Arsinöe, Pithom, Ramses, and Heroonpolis. Persians, Greeks, and Romans alike left their marks on this neighbourhood. Here, too, was the Goshen of the children of Israel. It would be interesting also to ascertain how far into what is now desert reached the land that was then cultivated; and what, relatively to the sea and river, was the level of the bottom of the old Canal.