The Isthmus of Suez Question

by Ferdinand de Lesseps

Dictating himself the terms of the Firman of Concession, Prince Mohammed Saïd has required that the undertaking shall be complete, and that an attentive examination of the localities be made, in order to profit by all the advantages offered by nature. He has recommended that the shortest track be followed, the least expensive, and that which will admit of the largest ships. His early studies and his experience in nautical art, have perfectly prepared him for the comprehension of all the bearings of the scientific question. He has indicated Pelusium and Suez, as the extreme points of the cutting to be made in that narrow tract of land, which presents a longitudinal depression across the Isthmus, of thirty leagues, and which is formed by the meeting of the two plains descending with a gradual slope, the one from Egypt, the other from the frontier hills of Asia. He considers that nature has herself traced out the communication between the two Seas, in the line of this depression.

Towards Lake Timsah, situated at an equal distance from Suez and Pelusium, another not less remarkable furrow meets the longitudinal depression at right angles; it is that of the Wady Tomilat (the fruitful land of Goshen of Scripture). This furrow still receives, for a considerable length, the overflowings of the Nile, and also appears to form the natural track of a canal of communication, commencing at the river and proceeding to connect itself in the central part of the Isthmus, with the grand line of navigation to be established between the Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean.

The Maritime Canal will thus be brought into communication with the heart of Egypt, by a fresh water canal, which will receive the same navigation as the Nile, and will serve also for the irrigation of large zones of the desert, exhibiting at present the most wild and desolate aspect.

Upon these data we have been instructed to make a preliminary report.

Before giving the results of our investigations, it has appeared necessary to us to justify the idea of a direct track between the two Seas; for this line never having been executed, although it is the most natural, it might be supposed that whenever the junction of the two Seas has been attempted, such difficulties have been met with, that it has been obliged to be relinquished; but this is by no means the case, as we shall presently show.

In fact, what M. Lebeau says in his Histoire du Bas Empire (tom, xii., p. 490), following Abulfeda, Prince of Syria, historian and geographer, who was living in the year 753 of the Hegira, is as follows:—

“The coast at Farma (a town a little to the east of Pelusium, on the Mediterranean) was only seventy miles (106,000 metres) distant from the Red Sea. This space was a very smooth plain, slightly elevated above the level of the two Seas. Amrou formed the design of uniting them by a canal, which he would have filled with the waters of the Nile; but Omar having opposed it, from fear of opening an entrance into Arabia for the ships of the Christians, Amrou turned his thoughts in another direction. There was an ancient canal, called Trajanus Amnis, which Adrian caused to be brought from the Nile near to Babylon, in Egypt, as far as Pharboëtus, now Belbeïs. He met at this place with another canal, commenced by Nechos, and continued by Darius Hystaspes, and the two together discharged themselves into a lagoon of salt water, at the outlet of which Ptolemy Philadelphus caused a large trench to be made, which conducted the waters as far as the town of Arsinoë, or Cleopatris, at that part of the Gulf where Suez now is.

“The whole of this canal, being filled up with sand, had become useless at the time of the famous Cleopatra. Amrou was not deterred by the ancient prejudice, which, supposing the waters of the Red Sea to be higher than the soil of Egypt, created a fear of opening a passage for them; and he made it navigable for the transport of the corn of Egypt into Arabia. It is that which is now called Khalig, which passes through Cairo, but it only goes as far as the lagoon called the Lake of Sheib. The remainder, as far as the Red Sea, is entirely filled up, although some traces of it are still distinguishable.”

We have thought it necessary to quote the entire passage, because it clearly establishes the question of the Canal, and certain facts to which we shall return hereafter.

After Amrou came the Sultan, Mustapha III., who took great interest in the scheme for the junction of the two Seas by the Isthmus of Suez, and who intended to execute this work at a time of peace. (See Mémoires sur les Turcs, by M. De Tott, Parts iii. and iv.)