[319] Hill was an engineer, and Raven a wheelwright in the service originally of Galloway Bey, and, subsequently, in that of the Pasha of Egypt, Muhammed Ali, who, when they were in difficulties to carry on their work, rendered them pecuniary assistance.
[320] Mr. Waghorn, in his evidence before the House of Commons Committee of 1837, says (question 53), “I can send Mr. Hill and other men of the service at an hour’s notice from Cairo,” &c., by which it appears they were then, at least, under his orders.
[321] In a note I received from Sir Daniel Lange (12th March, 1875), he remarks: “M. de Lesseps often told me how he met Waghorn struggling with man and beast in the desert to carry his mails across, and that it served as an example to him in after-life with the Suez Canal.”
[322] See evidence before Committee of 1834 by Mr. Peacock, pp. 2 and 3.
[323] Messrs. Galloway Brothers (see evidence before Committee of 1837) had established at Boolak (a suburb of Cairo) an extensive iron manufactory, and were in a position to carry out the Pasha’s railway, for which they had imported plant by his orders to the value of 200,000l. Whether any portion of this was used by Mr. Stephenson, who subsequently constructed the railway, does not appear.
[324] Pamphlet by Mr. R. H. Galloway (pp. 15 and 17), published by Willis, Sotheran, and Co., London, 1871.
[325] Evidence of Major Head, Mr. T. T. Peacock, and others, before the Select Committee of 1834.
[326] The truth about these ancient canals seems to be as follows:
1. According to Herodotus, Pharaoh Necho commenced one from the Nile to the Red Sea (ii. 158) which he says was completed by Darius the son of Hystaspes (iv. 39). This canal, we may fairly presume, was open when Herodotus was in Egypt, as he states it was four days’ journey in length, and wide enough for two small triremes to row abreast; it is doubtless the one attributed by Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny to Sesostris—an identification confirmed by the fact that, in recent times, tablets bearing the name of Rameses (Sesostris) have been found on the site of its present dried up bed. As far as can be now ascertained, it would seem that this canal left the Nile at or near the city of Bubastis (now Tel Basta). The discovery of a Cuneiform inscription of Darius near Suez, gives colour also to the traditional story which refers to him. Diodorus, notices the proverbial opinion of the height of the waters of the Red Sea (i. 33) and adds, that this canal was completed by Ptolemy when he built Arsinoe.
2. There is no doubt that this canal continued in some use under the Roman Emperors, as Trajan formed a new connection for it by a cutting at Babylon (Old Cairo) (Ptol. Geogr. iv. s. 54), and, further, Sir Gardner Wilkinson has shown that the whole line from the Nile to the Gulf was restored by the Khalif Omar, and was in use for a century and a half after his time. The work of Necho appears also to have included a canal from the head of the gulf to the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, as of this considerable remains still exist.