Not fairly considered in England.
Nor were these doubts surprising, for the site of ancient Pelusium is upon a low flat shelving sandy coast where sea and land seem to blend with each other, and where the long roll of the surf over a flat beach forbids even the approach of a boat. No wonder therefore that the indefatigable M. de Lesseps was unable for years to induce either governments or individuals to provide the requisite means; indeed, his own countrymen, when he issued the prospectus in 1857, were nearly if not quite as lukewarm about it as foreigners, while in England on the other hand, a great outcry was created, mainly by Lord Palmerston, against the project on political grounds. It is not, however, my province to enter upon these; but, surely, England, with her vast possessions in the East and with the command of the sea, was far more interested than any other nation in removing Egypt from the envy it had long been of powerful European nations, and, in cutting a ship canal—a great highway—through it, which would be open to the vessels of all nations like the Sound or the Dardanelles. Indeed, every increased facility for reaching our Indian possessions must be a far greater gain to us than to any other nation.
But strange to say the political opposition raised by England[332] proved the chief means of enabling M. de Lesseps to raise the requisite capital, and secured him support he would otherwise not probably have obtained. Foreign capitalists, especially in France, now came forward to subscribe, not that they had much faith in the commercial success of the canal, but because they felt grieved or annoyed that an undertaking, which could not fail to benefit mankind, even if it did not pay the original subscribers, should be opposed on narrow and jealous grounds by one of the most conspicuous, if not in all matters the most enlightened, of English statesmen.
Commencement of M. de Lesseps’ works, 1857.
But, even with the requisite capital at command, M. de Lesseps had a most arduous and herculean task to perform. It was necessary, remarks Sir Daniel Lange, previously to entering on a work of such magnitude, to prepare dwellings, storehouses, factories, forges, and a lighthouse; indeed, all the accessories indispensable for putting in motion the huge mechanical appliances intended to be used. All this was done in the newly erected “Town of Port Said.” But before this place could be formed, the marshes had to be raised 10 feet above the sea-level, so as to form an area of sixty-seven acres of solid land; and from this basis piers had to be carried out into the open sea, the western one for a distance of one and three-quarter miles, and the eastern a mile and one-third in length, composed of not less than 250,000 blocks of concrete, weighing about thirty tons each. Between these piers a harbour was formed with a surface of 132 acres, the excavations from it amounting to 4,669,943 cubic mètres.[333]
General details.
But among the many obstacles encountered, none were half so formidable as the formation of the channel through Lake Menzaleh, which extended 21 miles from Port Said to Kantara. The sands and other insurmountable obstacles which had been prophesied were as nothing to this work, arising from the fact that the mud and slush had actually to be thrown up by the hands alone (just as children in their amusements make mud-heaps) of the thousands of natives employed to form a dyke;[334] indeed, had it not been for the powerful Egyptian sun, which dried up the mud so exposed in a few hours, the task would have been impracticable, as ordinary mechanical appliances must have failed to overcome such an obstacle.
When something like an opening had been made through many miles of “black slush,” and clear water began to flow in, rafts were constructed, and on these the men slept under tents made of mats. In this work, about fifteen thousand fishermen from the neighbourhood were employed, a class of men who, from time immemorial, had been accustomed, in their ordinary avocations, to spend a large portion of their time half immersed in the water.
When a passage of sufficient dimensions had been scooped out with their hands, dredging-machines were introduced. By degrees this trench was widened until it reached the dimensions of 330 feet wide, and 26 feet deep; the sides, from the rapid drying of the mud, soon becoming almost as solid as walls of masonry and quite as durable.
It was between these new banks that floating dredging-machines of a novel construction, with shoots 220 feet in length, were placed, thus enabling M. de Lesseps to dispense with the previously expensive mode of conveying the silt raised by the dredgers in hopper-barges to sea; the new machines discharged the stuff excavated from the channel over the embankments on to the low and marshy land on either side:[335] by these means two good results were attained; the channel of the canal was economically cleared, and the mud thus excavated employed in greatly strengthening its banks on each side.