3. It may be further remarked, that the bed of the Bitter Lakes was, even in the time of Strabo (xvii. p. 804), filled with Nile water, as the same fish were noticed in both. At the same time, we may be sure that nothing like a ship (in our sense of the word) ever passed through the isthmus until M. de Lesseps completed his great work.
[327] Ferdinand de Lesseps in his youth was attached to the Consulate at Lisbon, and then, in 1828, to the Consulate-General at Tunis. In the following year he was appointed Vice-Consul at Alexandria, and in 1832 he was advanced to be Consul at Cairo, where he remained for seven years. In 1842, he received the appointment of Consul-General at Barcelona; in 1848 he went to Madrid as French Minister Plenipotentiary; and later on, to an important mission in Rome, after which he retired to Berri (France) to mature his plans for the Suez Canal, which had been the almost constant subject of his thoughts since his residence in Cairo.
[328] See a very interesting paper read by Mr. (now Sir Daniel) Lange before the Society of Arts, London, April 27th, 1870.
[329] It is fair to recollect that my old friend and colleague on the Harbour of Refuge Commission, Captain Vetch, R.N., more than thirty years ago (and therefore before M. de Lesseps) proposed a ship canal from Suez to Tineh, on the Mediterranean, a distance of about 75 miles, to be carried out by British capital. At that time the idea of the height of the water at Suez above that of the Mediterranean prevailed. Captain Vetch therefore calculated that, with a canal 180 feet wide at the top, 96 feet at the bottom, and 21 feet in the depth, the steady descent of the water along this gradient would produce scourage sufficient to clear away the sand and mud accumulated at the Mediterranean end. No doubt Captain Vetch’s observations and details tended to satisfy M. de Lesseps of the feasibility of some such canal.
[330] Some preparatory steps had also been taken which, by getting rid of unscientific hypotheses, facilitated in some degree M. de Lesseps’ views. Thus, at the suggestion of the Viceroy, the English, French, and Austrian Governments had sent in 1847 a joint commission of scientific men to take the various levels on the isthmus of Suez, especially as regarded the relative heights of the water in the two seas. Mr. Robert Stephenson represented England; M. Talabot, France; M. Negretti, Austria; and Linant Bey, the Pasha. Stephenson watched the rise and fall of the tide at Suez and Negretti at Tineh, the result being the demonstration that the two seas have exactly the same level within a few inches. A full account of the plan developed by M. Talabot from the observations of this commission will be found in the “Révue des Deux Mondes,” and there seems little doubt that, but for the determined opposition of Mr. Robert Stephenson, whose imagination (to the day of his death) was perpetually haunted with ideas of the sand, silt, and mud with which he maintained any canal must be filled up, the great work, which was the glory of M. de Lesseps, would have been carried out by English enterprise some years earlier than 1869.
[331] Sir Daniel Lange was knighted after the opening of the Suez Canal. He is a native of London, and the holder of various foreign honours. He unsuccessfully contested Midhurst in 1868.
[332] Not however by all her statesmen, for Mr. Gladstone, Lord Russell, Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, Mr. Milner Gibson, and others strenuously objected to any hostile interference on the part of Government with the project.
[333] My readers will find an excellent account of the early works of the Suez Canal, in a little book published by Mr. A. K. Lynch, entitled “A Visit to the Suez Canal,” Lond. 8vo. 1866, with several excellent lithograph drawings of Port Said, Ismailia, and other places on it. A French mètre is 39 English inches or 1-19th more than an English yard.
[334] Herodotus (132) speaks of the vast amount of forced labour employed in the construction of the great Pyramids; hence various writers, recalling the hardships these “slaves” had to endure, protested against the employment of “similar bodies of men” in the construction of the Suez Canal, commenting on the scandalous treatment to which they were subjected. But I have enquired minutely into this question, and I cannot find any just grounds for these complaints. On the contrary, the men employed appear to have been free labourers, fairly remunerated according to the work they performed, and, on the whole, kindly treated.
[335] Besides the dredging-machines and men employed, there were at work upon the canal during the last six months of 1864, 42,929 camels, 9350 horses, 2489 mules, and 2835 donkeys.