ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
MALTA AND THE SUEZ CANAL.
Calypso’s Isle—A Convict Paradise—Malta, the “Flower of the
World”—The Knights of St. John—Rise of the Order—The Crescent and
the Cross—The Siege of Rhodes—L’Isle Adam in London—The Great
Siege of Malta—Horrible Episodes—Malta in French and English
Hands—St. Paul’s Cave—The Catacombs—Modern Incidents—The Shipwreck
of St. Paul—Gales in the Mediterranean—Experiences of Nelson and
Collingwood—Squalls in the Bay of San Francisco—A Man
Overboard—Special Winds of the Mediterranean—The Suez Canal and M.
de Lesseps—His Diplomatic Career—Saïd Pacha as a Boy—As a
Viceroy—The Plan Settled—Financial Troubles—Construction of the
Canal—The Inauguration Fête—Suez—Passage of the Children of Israel
through the Red Sea.
Approaching Malta, we must “not in silence pass Calypso’s Isle.” Warburton
describes it, in his delightful work on the East(82)—a classic on the
Mediterranean—as a little paradise, with all the beauties of a continent
in miniature; little mountains with craggy summits, little valleys with
cascades and rivers, lawny meadows and dark woods, trim gardens and
tangled vineyards—all within a circuit of five or six miles.
One or two uninhabited little islands, “that seem to have strayed from the
continent and lost their way,” dot the sea between the pleasant penal
settlement and Gozo, which is also a claimant for the doubtful honour of
Calypso’s Isle. Narrow straits separate it from the rock, the “inhabited
quarry,” called Malta, of which Valetta is the port. The capital is a
cross between a Spanish and an Eastern town; most of its streets are
flights of steps.
Although the climate is delightful, it is extremely warm, and there is
usually a glare of heat about the place, owing to its rocky nature and
limited amount of tree-shade. “All Malta,” writes Tallack,(83) “seems to
be light yellow—light yellow rocks, light yellow fortifications, light
yellow stone walls, light yellow flat-topped houses, light yellow palaces,
light yellow roads and streets.” Stones and stone walls are the chief and
conspicuous objects in a Maltese landscape; and for good reason, for the
very limited soil is propped up and kept in bounds by them on the hills.
With the scanty depth of earth the vegetation between the said stone walls
is wonderful. The green bushy carob and prickly cactus are to be seen; but
in the immediate neighbourhood of Malta few trees, only an occasional and
solitary palm. Over all, the bright blue sky; around, the deep blue sea.
You must not say anything to a Maltese against it; with him it is “Flor
del Mondo”—the “Flower of the World.”
The poorest natives live in capital stone houses, many of them with
façades and fronts which would be considered ornamental in an English
town. The terraced roofs make up to its cooped inhabitants the space lost
by building. There are five or six hundred promenadable roofs in the city.
Tallack says that the island generally is the abode of industry and
contentment. Expenses are high, except as regards the purchase of fruits,
including the famed “blood,” “Mandolin” (sometimes called quite as
correctly “Mandarin”) oranges, and Japan medlars, and Marsala wine from
Sicily. The natives live simply, as a rule, but the officers and foreign
residents commonly do not; and it is true here, as Ford says of the
military gentlemen at Gibraltar, that their faces often look somewhat
redder than their jackets in consequence. As in India, many unwisely adopt
the high living of their class, in a climate where a cool and temperate
diet is indispensable.
The four great characteristics of Malta are soldiers, priests, goats, and
bells—the latter not being confined to the necks of the goats, but
jangling at all hours from the many church towers. The goats pervade
everywhere; there is scarcely any cow’s milk to be obtained in Malta. They
may often be seen with sheep, as in the patriarchal days of yore,
following their owners, in accordance with the pastoral allusions of the
Bible.
What nature commenced in Valetta, art has finished. It has a land-locked
harbour—really several, running into each other—surrounded by high
fortified walls, above which rise houses, and other fortifications above
them. There are galleries in the rock following the Gibraltar precedent,
and batteries bristling with guns; barracks, magazines, large docks,
foundry, lathe-rooms, and a bakery for the use of the “United” Service.
To every visitor the gorgeous church of San Giovanni, with its vaulted
roof of gilded arabesque, its crimson hangings, and carved pulpits, is a
great object of interest. Its floor resembles one grand escutcheon—a
mosaic of knightly tombs, recalling days when Malta was a harbour of
saintly refuge and princely hospitality for crusaders and pilgrims of the
cross. An inner chapel is guarded by massive silver rails, saved from the
French by the cunning of a priest, who, on their approach, painted them
wood-colour, and their real nature was never suspected. But amid all the
splendour of the venerable pile, its proudest possession to-day is a bunch
of old rusty keys—the keys of Rhodes, the keys of the Knights of St. John.
What history is not locked up with those keys! There is hardly a country
in Europe, Asia, or Northern Africa, the history of which has not been
more or less entangled with that of these Knights of the Cross, who,
driven by the conquering Crescent from Jerusalem, took refuge successively
in Cyprus, Rhodes, Candia, Messina, and finally, Malta.
The island had an important place in history and commerce long ere that
period. The Phœnicians held it 700 years; the Greeks a century and a half.
The Romans retained it for as long a period as the Phœnicians; and after
being ravaged by Goths and Vandals, it was for three and a half centuries
an appanage of the crown of Byzantium. Next came the Arabs, who were
succeeded by the Normans, and soon after it had become a German
possession, Charles V. presented it to the homeless knights.
In the middle of the eleventh century, some merchants of the then
flourishing commercial city of Amalfi obtained permission to erect three
hostelries or hospitals in the Holy City, for the relief of poor and
invalided pilgrims. On the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, the
position and prospects of the hospitals of St. John became greatly
improved. The organisation became a recognised religious order, vowing
poverty, obedience, and chastity. Its members were distinguished by a
white cross of four double points worn on a black robe, of the form
commonly to be met in the Maltese filigree jewellery of to-day, often to
be noted in our West End and other shops. Branch hospitals spread all over
Europe with the same admirable objects, and the order received constant
acquisitions of property. Under the guidance of Raymond du Puy, military
service was added to the other vows, and the monks became the White Cross
Knights.(84) Henceforth each seat of the order became a military garrison
in addition to a hospice, and each knight held himself in readiness to aid
with his arms his distressed brethren against the infidel.
Slowly but surely the Crescent overshadowed the Cross: the Holy City had
to be evacuated. The pious knights, after wandering first to Cyprus,
settled quietly in Rhodes, where for two centuries they maintained a
sturdy resistance against the Turks. At the first siege, in 1480, a
handful of the former resisted 70,000 of the latter. The bombardment was
so terrific that it is stated to have been heard a hundred miles off, and
for this extraordinary defence, Peter d’Aubusson, Grand Master, was made a
cardinal by the Pope. At the second siege, L’Isle Adam, with 600 Knights
of St. John, and 4,500 troops, resisted and long repelled a force of
200,000 infidels. But the odds were too great against him, and after a
brave but hopeless defence, which won admiration even from the enemy,
L’Isle Adam capitulated. After personal visits to the Pope, and to the
Courts of Madrid, Paris, and London, the then almost valueless Rock of
Malta was bestowed on the knights in 1530. Its noble harbours, and deep
and sheltered inlets were then as now, but there was only one little town,
called Burgo—Valetta as yet was not.
[Illustration: THE DEFENCE OF MALTA BY THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN AGAINST THE
TURKS IN 1565.]
In London, L’Isle Adam lodged at the provincial hostelry of the order, St.
John’s Clerkenwell, still a house of entertainment, though of a very
different kind. Henry VIII. received him with apparent cordiality, and
shortly afterwards confiscated all the English possessions of the knights!
This was but a trifle among their troubles, for in 1565 they were again
besieged in Malta. Their military knowledge, and especially that of their
leader, the great La Valette, had enabled them to already strongly fortify
the place. La Valette had 500 knights and 9,000 soldiers, while the Turks
had 30,000 fighting men, conveyed thither in 200 galleys, and were
afterwards reinforced by the Algerine corsair, Drugot, and his men. A
desperate resistance was made: 2,000 Turks were killed in a single day.
The latter took the fortress of St. Elmo, with the loss of Drugot—just
before the terror of the Mediterranean—who was killed by a splinter of
rock, knocked off by a cannon-ball in its flight. The garrison was at
length reduced to sixty men, who attended their devotions in the chapel
for the last time. Many of these were fearfully wounded, but even then the
old spirit asserted itself, and they desired to be carried to the ramparts
in chairs to lay down their lives in obedience to the vows of their order.
Next day few of that devoted sixty were alive, a very small number
escaping by swimming. The attempts on the other forts, St. Michael and St.
Angelo, were foiled. Into the Eastern Harbour (now the Grand), Mustapha
ordered the dead bodies of the Christian knights and soldiers to be cast.
They were spread out on boards in the form of a cross, and floated by the
tide across to the besieged with La Valette, where they were sorrowfully
taken up and interred. In exasperated retaliation, La Valette fired the
heads of the Turkish slain back at their former companions—a horrible
episode of a fearful struggle. St. Elmo alone cost the lives of 8,000
Turks, 150 Knights of St. John, and 1,300 of their men. After many false
promises of assistance, and months of terrible suspense and suffering, an
auxiliary force arrived from Sicily, and the Turks retired. Out of the
9,500 soldiers and knights who were originally with La Valette, only 500
were alive at the termination of the great siege.
This memorable defence was the last of the special exploits of the White
Cross Knights, and they rested on their laurels, the order becoming
wealthy, luxurious, and not a little demoralised. When the French
Revolution broke out in 1789, the confiscation of their property in France
naturally followed; for they had been helping Louis XVI. with their
revenues just previously. Nine years later, Napoleon managed, by skilful
intrigues, to obtain quiet possession of Malta. But he could not keep it,
for after two years of blockade it was won by Great Britain, and she has
held it ever since. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, our possession was
formally ratified. We hold it on as good a title as we do Gibraltar, by
rights acknowledged at the signing of the Peace Treaty.(85)
The supposed scene of St. Paul’s shipwreck is constantly visited, and
although some have doubted whether the Melita of St. Luke is not the
island of the same name in the Adriatic, tradition and probability point
to Malta.(86) At St. Paul’s Bay, there is a small chapel over the cave,
with a statue of the apostle in marble, with the viper in his hand.
Colonel Shaw tells us that the priest who shows the cave recommended him
to take a piece of the stone as a specific against shipwreck, saying,
“Take away as much as you please, you will not diminish the cave.” Some of
the priests aver that there is a miraculous renovation, and that it cannot
diminish! and when they tell you that under one of the Maltese churches
the great apostle did _penance_ in a cell for three months, it looks still
more as though they are drawing on their imagination.
[Illustration: CATACOMBS AT CITTA VECCHIA, MALTA.]
The great catacombs at Citta Vecchia, Malta, were constructed by the
natives as places of refuge from the Turks. They consist of whole streets,
with houses and sleeping-places. They were later used for tombs. There are
other remains on the island of much greater antiquity, _Hagiar Chem_ (the
stones of veneration) date from Phœnician days. These include a temple
resembling Stonehenge, on a smaller scale, where there are seven
statuettes with a grotesque rotundity of outline, the seven Phœnician
_Cabiri_ (deities; “great and powerful ones”). There are also seven
divisions to the temple, which is mentioned by Herodotus and other ancient
writers.
To come back to our own time. In 1808, the following remarkable event
occurred at Malta. One Froberg had raised a levy of Greeks for the British
Government, by telling the individual members that they should all be
corporals, generals, or what not. It was to be all officers, like some
other regiments of which we have heard. The men soon found out the deceit,
but drilled admirably until the brutality of the adjutant caused them to
mutiny. Malta was at the time thinly garrisoned, and their particular fort
had only one small detachment of troops and thirty artillerymen. The
mutineers made the officer of artillery point his guns on the town. He,
however, managed that the shots should fall harmlessly. Another officer
escaped up a chimney, and the Greeks coming into the same house, nearly
suffocated him by lighting a large fire below. Troops arrived; the
mutineers were secured, and a court-martial condemned thirty, half of whom
were to be hanged, and the rest shot. Only five could be hanged at a time:
the first five were therefore suspended by the five who came next, and so
on. Of the men who were to be shot one ran away, and got over a parapet,
where he was afterwards shot: another is thought to have escaped.
Colonel Shaw tells the story of a soldier of the Sicilian regiment who had
frequently deserted. He was condemned to be shot. A priest who visited him
in prison left behind him—purposely, there can be little doubt—his iron
crucifix. The soldier used it to scrape away the mortar, and moved stone
after stone, until he got into an adjoining cell, where he found himself
no better off, as it was locked. The same process was repeated, until he
at last reached a cell of which the door was open, entered the passage and
climbed a wall, beneath which a sentry was posted. Fortunately for the
prisoner, a regular Maltese shower was pouring down, and the guard
remained in his box. The fugitive next reached a high gate, where it
seemed he must be foiled. Not at all! He went back, got his blanket, cut
it into strips, made a rope, and by its means climbed the gate, dropped
into a fosse, from which he reached and swam across the harbour. He lived
concealed for some time among the natives, but venturing one day into the
town, was recognised and captured. The governor considered that after all
this he deserved his life, and changed his sentence to transportation.
Before leaving Malta, which, with its docks, navy-yard, and splendid
harbours, fortifications, batteries, and magazines, is such an important
naval and military station, we may briefly mention the revenue derived,
and expenditure incurred by the Government in connection with it, as both
are considerable. The revenue derived from imposts of the usual nature,
harbour dues, &c., is about £175,000. The military expenditure is about
£366,000, which includes the expenses connected with the detachments of
artillery, and the Royal Maltese Fencibles, a native regiment of 600 to
700 men. The expenses of the Royal Navy would, of course, be incurred
somewhere, if not in Malta, and have therefore nothing to do with the
matter.
Our next points of destination are Alexandria and Suez, both intimately
identified with British interests. On our way we shall be passing through
or near the same waters as did St. Paul when in the custody of the
centurion Julius, “one of Augustus’ band.” It was in “a ship of
Alexandria” that he was a passenger on that disastrous voyage. At Fair
Havens, Crete (or Candia), we know that the Apostle admonished them to
stay, for “sailing was now dangerous,” but his advice was disregarded, and
“when the south wind blew softly” the master and owner of the vessel
feared nothing, but
“The flattering wind that late with promis’d aid,
From Candia’s Bay th’ unwilling ship betray’d,
No longer fawns beneath the fair disguise,”
and “not long after, there arose against it a tempestuous wind called
Euroclydon,” before which the ship drave under bare poles. We know that
she had to be undergirded; cables being passed under her hull to keep her
from parting; and lightened, by throwing the freight overboard. For
fourteen days the ship was driven hither and thither, till at length she
was wrecked off Melita. Sudden gales, whirlwinds, and typhoons are not
uncommon in the Mediterranean; albeit soft winds and calm seas alternate
with them.
On the 22nd May, 1798, Nelson, while in the Gulf of Genoa, was assailed by
a sudden storm, which carried away all the _Vanguard’s_ topmasts, washed
one man overboard, killed an unfortunate middy and a seaman on board, and
wounded others. This ship, which acted her name at the Nile only two
months afterwards, rolled and laboured so dreadfully, and was in such
distress, that Nelson himself declared, “The meanest frigate out of France
would have been an unwelcome guest!” An officer relates that in the middle
of the Gulf of Lyons, Lord Collingwood’s vessel, the _Ocean_, a roomy
98-gun ship, was struck by a sea in the middle of a gale, that threw her
on her beam-ends, so much so that the men on the _Royal Sovereign_ called
out, “The admiral’s gone down!” She righted again, however, but was
terribly disabled. Lord Collingwood said afterwards that the heavy guns
were suspended almost _vertically_, and that “he thought the topsides were
actually parting from the lower frame of the ship.” Admiral Smyth, in his
important physical, hydrographical, and nautical work on the
Mediterranean, relates that in 1812, when on the _Rodney_, a new 74-gun
ship, she was so torn by the united violence of wind and wave, that the
admiral had to send her to England, although sadly in need of ships. He
adds, however, that noble as was her appearance on the waters, “she was
one of that hastily-built batch of men-of-war sarcastically termed the
_Forty Thieves_!”
Many are the varieties of winds accompanied by special characteristics met
in the Mediterranean, and, indeed, sudden squalls are common enough in all
usually calm waters. The writer well remembers such an incident in the
beautiful Bay of San Francisco, California. He had, with friends, started
in the morning from the gay city of “Frisco” on a deep-sea fishing
excursion. The vessel was what is technically known as a “plunger,” a
strongly-built two-masted boat, with deck and cabins, used in the bay and
coast trade of the North Pacific, or for fishing purposes. When the party,
consisting of five ladies, four gentlemen, the master and two men, started
in the morning, there was scarcely a breath of wind or a ripple on the
water, and oars as large as those used on a barge were employed to propel
the vessel.
“The sea was bright, and the bark rode well,”
and at length the desired haven, a sheltered nook, with fine cliffs,
seaweed-covered rocks, and deep, clear water, was reached, and a dozen
strong lines, with heavy sinkers, put out. The sea was bountiful: in a
couple of hours enough fish were caught to furnish a capital lunch for
all. A camp was formed on the beach, a large fire of driftwood lighted,
and sundry hampers unpacked, from which the necks of bottles had protruded
suspiciously. It was an _al fresco_ picnic by the seaside. The sky was
blue, the weather was delightful, “and all went merry as a marriage bell.”
Later, while some wandered to a distance and bathed and swam, others
clambered over the hills, among the flowers and waving wild oats for which
the country is celebrated. Then, as evening drew on, preparations were
made for a return to the city, and “All aboard” was the signal, for the
wind was freshening. All remained on deck, for there was an abundance of
overcoats and rugs, and shortly the passing schooners and yachts could
hear the strains of minstrelsy from a not altogether incompetent choir,
several of the ladies on board being musically inclined. The sea gives
rise to thoughts of the sea. The reader may be sure that “The Bay of
Biscay,” “The Larboard Watch,” “The Minute Gun,” and “What are the Wild
Waves saying?” came among a score of others. Meantime, the wind kept
freshening, but all of the number being well accustomed to the sea, heeded
it not. Suddenly, in the midst of one of the gayest songs, a squall struck
the vessel, and as she was carrying all sail, put her nearly on her
beam-ends. So violent was the shock, that most things movable on deck,
including the passengers, were thrown or slid to the lower side, many
boxes and baskets going overboard. These would have been trifles, but
alas, there is something sadder to relate. As one of the men was helping
to take in sail, a great sea dashed over the vessel and threw him
overboard, and for a few seconds only, his stalwart form was seen
struggling in the waves. Ropes were thrown to, or rather towards him, an
empty barrel and a coop pitched overboard, but it was hopeless—
“That cry is ‘Help!’ where no help can come,
For the White Squall rides on the surging wave,”
and he disappeared in an “ocean grave,” amid the mingled foam and driving
spray. No more songs then; all gaiety was quenched, and many a tear-drop
clouded eyes so bright before. The vessel, under one small sail only (the
jib), drove on, and in half an hour broke out of obscurity and mist, and
was off the wharfs and lights of San Francisco in calm water. The same
distance had occupied over four hours in the morning.
In the Mediterranean every wind has its special name. There is the
searching north wind, the _Grippe_ or _Mistral_, said to be one of the
scourges of gay Provence—
“La Cour de Parlement, le Mistral et la Durance,
Sont les trois fléaux de la Provence.”
The north blast, a sudden wind, is called _Boras_, and hundreds of sailors
have practically prayed, with the song,
“Cease, rude Boreas.”
The north-east biting wind is the _Gregale_, while the south-east, often a
violent wind, is the dreaded _Sirocco_, bad either on sea or shore. The
last which need be mentioned here, is the stifling south-west wind, the
_Siffante_. But now we have reached the Suez Canal.
[Illustration: M. LESSEPS.]
This gigantic work, so successfully completed by M. Lesseps, for ever
solved the _possibility_ of a work which up to that time had been so
emphatically declared to be an impossibility. In effect, he _is_ a
conqueror. “_Impossible_,” said the first Napoleon, “_n’est pas
Français_,” and the motto is a good one for any man or any nation,
although the author of the sentence found many things impossible,
including that of which we speak. M. de Lesseps has done more for peace
than ever the Disturber of Europe did with war.
When M. de Lesseps(87) commenced with, not the Canal, but the grand
conception thereof, he had pursued twenty-nine years of first-class
diplomatic service: it would have been an honourable career for most
people. He gave it up from punctilios of honour; lost, at least possibly,
the opportunity of great political power. He was required to endorse that
which he could not possibly endorse. Lesseps had lost his chance, said
many. Let us see. The man who has conquered the usually unconquerable
English prejudice would certainly surmount most troubles! He has _only_
carried out the ideas of Sesostris, Alexander, Cæsar, Amrou, the Arabian
conqueror, Napoleon the Great, and Mehemet Ali. These are simply matters
of history. But history, in this case, has only repeated itself in the
failures, not in the successes. Lesseps has made the success; _they_ were
the failures! Let us review history, amid which you may possibly find many
truths. The truth alone, as far as it may be reached, appears in this
work. The Peace Society ought to endorse Lesseps. As it stands, the Peace
party—well-intentioned people—ought to raise a statue to the man who has
made it almost impossible for England to be involved in war, so far as the
great East is concerned, for many a century to come.
After all, who is the conqueror—he who kills, or he who saves, thousands?
To prove our points, it will not be necessary to recite the full history
of the grandest engineering work of this century—a century replete with
proud engineering works. Here it can only be given in the barest outline.
Every intelligent child on looking at the map would ask why the natural
route to India was not by the Isthmus of Suez, and why a canal was not
made. His schoolmaster answered, in days gone by, that there was a
difference in the levels of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. That
question has been answered successfully, and the difference has not ruined
the Canal. Others said that it was impossible to dig a canal through the
desert. It has been done! Lord Palmerston, the most serious opponent in
England that Lesseps had,(88) thought that France, our best ally to-day,
would have too much influence in Egypt. Events, thanks to Lord
Beaconsfield’s astute policy, by purchasing the Khedive’s interest, have
given England the largest share among the shareholders of all nations.
It would not be interesting to follow all the troubles that Lesseps
successfully combated. The idea had more than once occurred to him, when
in 1852 he applied to Constantinople. The answer was that it in no way
concerned the Porte. Lesseps returned to his farm at Berry, and not
unlikely constructed miniature Suez Canals for irrigation, thought of
camels while he improved the breed of cattle, and built houses, but not on
the sand of the desert. Indeed, it was while on the roof of one of his
houses, then in course of construction, that the news came to him of the
then Pacha of Egypt’s death (Mehemet Ali). They had once been on familiar
terms. Mehemet Ali was a terribly severe man, and seeing that his son Saïd
Pacha, a son he loved, was growing fat, he had sent him to climb the masts
of ships for two hours a day, to row, and walk round the walls of the
city. Poor little fat boy! he used to steal round to Lesseps’ rooms, and
surreptitiously obtain meals from the servants. Those surreptitious
dinners did not greatly hurt the interests of the Canal, as we shall see.
Mehemet Ali had been a moderate tyrant—to speak advisedly. His son-in-law,
Defderdar, known popularly as the “Scourge of God,” was his acting
vicegerent. The brute once had his groom shod like a horse for having
badly shod his charger. A woman of the country one day came before him,
complaining of a soldier who had bought milk of her, and had refused to
pay for it. “Art thou sure of it?” asked the tyrant. “Take care! they
shall tear open thy stomach if no milk is found in that of the soldier.”
They opened the stomach of the soldier. Milk was found in it. The poor
woman was saved. But, although his successor was not everything that could
be wished, he had a good heart, and was not “the terrible Turk.”
In 1854, Lesseps met Saïd Pacha in his tent on a plain between Alexandria
and Lake Mareotis, a swamp in the desert. His Highness was in good humour,
and understood Lesseps perfectly. A fine Arabian horse had been presented
to him by Saïd Pacha a few days previously. After examining the plans and
investigating the subject, the ruler of Egypt said, “I accept your plan.
We will talk about the means of its execution during the rest of the
journey. Consider the matter settled. You may rely on me.” He sent
immediately for his generals, and made them sit down, repeating the
previous conversation, and inviting them to give their opinion of the
proposals of his _friend_. The impromptu counsellors were better able to
pronounce on equestrian evolutions than on a vast enterprise. But Lesseps,
a good horseman, had just before cleared a wall with his charger, and
they, seeing how he stood with the Viceroy, gave their assent by raising
their hands to their foreheads. The dinner-tray then appeared, and with
one accord all plunged their spoons into the same bowl, which contained
some first-class soup. Lesseps considered it, very naturally, as the most
important negotiation he had ever made.
[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF SUEZ CANAL.]
Results speak for themselves. In 1854, there _was not a fly in that
hideous desert_. Water, sheep, fowls, and provisions of all kinds had to
be carried by the explorers. When at night they opened the coops of fowls,
and let the sheep run loose, they did it with confidence. They were sure
that next morning, in that desolate place, the animals dare not desert the
party. “When,” says Lesseps, “we struck our camp of a morning, if at the
moment of departure a hen had lurked behind, pecking at the foot of a
tamarisk shrub, quickly she would jump up on the back of a camel, to
regain her cage.” That desert is now peopled. There are three important
towns. Port Saïd had not existed before: there is now what would be called
a “city,” in America, on a much smaller basis of truth: it has 12,000
people. Suez, with 15,000 people, was not much more than a village
previously. Ismaïlia, half-way on the route, has 5,000 or 6,000 of
population. There are other towns or villages.
A canal actually effecting a junction between the two seas _viâ_ the Nile
was made in the period of the Egyptian dynasties. It doubtless fulfilled
its purpose for the passage of galleys and smaller vessels; history hardly
tells us when it was rendered useless. Napoleon the First knew the
importance of the undertaking, and appointed a commission of engineers to
report on it. M. Lepère presented him a report on its feasibility, and
Napoleon observed on it, “It is a grand work; and though I cannot execute
it now, the day may come when the Turkish Government will glory in
accomplishing it.” Other schemes, including those of eminent Turkish
engineers, had been proposed. It remained to be accomplished in this
century. The advantages gained by its construction can hardly be
enumerated here. Suffice it to say that a vessel going by the Cape of Good
Hope from London to Bombay travels nearly 6,000 miles over the ocean; by
the Suez Canal the distance is 3,100, barely more than half the distance.
To tell the history of the financial troubles which obstructed the scheme
would be tedious to the reader. At last there was an International
Commission appointed, which cost the Viceroy of Egypt £12,000, and yet no
single member took a farthing for his services. The names are sufficient
to prove with what care it had been selected. On the part of England,
Messrs. Rendel and MacClean, both eminent engineers, with, for a
sufficiently good reason, Commander Hewet of the East India Company’s
service, who for twenty-seven years had been making surveys in the Red Sea
and Indian Ocean. France gave two of her greatest engineers, Messrs.
Renaud and Liessou: Austria, one of _the_ greatest practical engineers in
the world, M. de Negrelli; Italy, M. Paléocapa; Germany, the distinguished
Privy Councillor Lentzé; Holland, the Chevalier Conrad; Spain, M. de
Montesino. They reported entirely in favour of the route. A second
International Congress followed. The Viceroy behaved so magnificently to
the scientific gentlemen of all nations who composed the commission, that
M. de Lesseps thanked him publicly for having received them almost as
crowned heads. The Viceroy answered gracefully, “Are they not the crowned
heads of science?”
[Illustration: MAP OF THE SUEZ CANAL.]
At last the financial and political difficulties were overcome. In 1858,
an office was opened in Paris, into which money flowed freely. Lesseps
tells good-naturedly some little episodes which occurred. An old
bald-headed priest entered, doubtless a man who had been formerly a
soldier. “Oh! those English,” said he, “I am glad to be able to be
revenged on them by taking shares in the Suez Canal.” Another said, “I
wish to subscribe for ‘Le Chemin de Fer de l’Ile de Suède’” (The Island of
Sweden Railway!) It was remarked to him that the scheme did not include a
railway, and that Sweden is not an island. “That’s all the same to me,” he
replied, “provided it be against the English, I subscribe.” Lord
Palmerston, whose shade must feel uneasy in the neighbourhood of the
Canal, could not have been more prejudiced. At Grenoble, a whole regiment
of engineers—naturally men of intelligence and technical knowledge,
clubbed together for shares. The matter was not settled by even the free
inflow of money. The Viceroy had been so much annoyed by the opposition
shown to the scheme, that it took a good deal of tact on the part of its
promoter to make things run smoothly. For the first four years, Lesseps,
in making the necessary international and financial arrangements,
travelled 30,000 miles per annum.
At length the scheme emerged from fog to fact. The Viceroy had promised
20,000 Egyptian labourers, but in 1861 he begged to be let out of his
engagement. He had to pay handsomely for the privilege. Although the men
were paid higher than they had ever been before, their labour was cheap:
it cost double or treble the amount to employ foreigners.
The Canal, in its course of a shade over 100 miles, passes through several
salt marshes, “Les Petits Bassins des Lacs Amers,” in one of which a
deposit of salt was found, seven miles long by five miles wide. It also
passes through an extensive piece of water, Lake Menzaleh.
At Lake Menzaleh the banks are very slightly above the level of the Canal,
and from the deck of a big steamer there is an unbounded view over a wide
expanse of lake and morass studded with islets, and at times gay and
brilliant with innumerable flocks of rosy pelicans, scarlet flamingoes,
and snow-white spoonbills, geese, ducks, and other birds. The pelicans may
be caught bodily from a boat, so clumsy are they in the water, without the
expenditure of powder and shot. Indeed, the sportsman might do worse than
visit the Canal, where, it is almost needless to state, the shooting is
open to all. A traveller, who has recently passed through the Canal _en
route_ to India, writes that there are alligators also to be seen. The
whole of the channel through Lake Menzaleh was almost entirely excavated
with dredges. When it was necessary to remove some surface soil before
there was water enough for the dredges to float, it was done by the
natives of Lake Menzaleh, a hardy and peculiar race, quite at home in
digging canals or building embankments. The following account shows their
mode of proceeding:—“They place themselves in files across the channel.
The men in the middle of the file have their feet and the lower part of
their legs in the water. These men lean forward and take in their arms
large clods of earth, which they have previously dug up below the water
with a species of pickaxe called a fass, somewhat resembling a short, big
hoe. The clods are passed from man to man to the bank, where other men
stand with their backs turned, and their arms crossed behind them, so as
to make a sort of primitive hod. As soon as each of these has had enough
clods piled on his back, he walks off, bent almost double, to the further
side of the bank, and there opening his arms, lets his load fall through
to the ground. It is unnecessary to add that this original _métier_
requires the absence of all clothing.”(89)
Into the channel thus dug the dredges were floated. One of the machines
employed deserves special mention. The _long couloir_ (duct) was an iron
spout 230 feet long, five and a half wide, and two deep, by means of which
a dredger working in the centre of the channel could discharge its
contents beyond the bank, assisted by the water which was pumped into it.
The work done by these long-spouted dredges has amounted to as much as
120,000 cubic yards a-piece of soil in a month. By all kinds of ingenious
appliances invented for the special needs of the occasion, as much as
2,763,000 cubic yards of excavation were accomplished in a month. M. de
Lesseps tells us that “were it placed in the Place Vendôme, it would fill
the whole square, and rise five times higher than the surrounding houses.”
It would cover the entire length and breadth of the Champs Elysées, and
reach to the top of the trees on either side.
[Illustration: THE SUEZ CANAL: DREDGES AT WORK.]
Port Saïd, which owes its very existence to the Canal, is to-day a port of
considerable importance, where some of the finest steamships in the world
stop. All the through steamers between Europe and the East—our own grand
“P. & O.” (Peninsular and Oriental) line, the splendid French
“Messageries,” the Austrian Lloyd’s, and dozens of excellent lines, all
make a stay here of eight or ten hours. This is long enough for most
travellers, as, sooth to say, the very land on which it is built had to be
“made,” in other words, it was a tract of swampy desert. It has
respectable streets and squares, docks, quays, churches, mosques, and
hotels. The outer port is formed by two enormous breakwaters, one of which
runs straight out to sea for a distance of 2,726 yards. They have
lighthouses upon them, using electricity as a means of illumination.
Messrs. Borel and Lavalley were the principal contractors for the work.
The ingenious machinery used cost nearly _two and a half million pounds_
(actually £2,400,000), and the _monthly_ consumption of coal cost the
Company £40,000.
The distance from Port Saïd to Suez is 100 miles. The width of the Canal,
where the banks are low, is about 328 feet, and in deep cuttings 190 feet.
The deep channel is marked with buoys. The mole at the Port Saïd
(Mediterranean) end of the Canal stretches out into the sea for over half
a mile, near the Damietta branch of the Nile. This helps to form an
artificial harbour, and checks the mud deposits which might otherwise
choke the entrance. It cost as much as half a million. In the Canal there
are recesses—shall we call them sidings, as on a railway?—where vessels
can enter and allow others to pass.
The scenery, we must confess, is generally monotonous. At Ismaïlia,
however, a town has arisen where there are charming gardens. We are told
that “it seems only necessary to pour the waters of the Nile on the desert
to produce a soil which will grow anything to perfection.” Here the
Viceroy built a temporary palace, and M. de Lesseps himself has a
_châlet_. At Suez itself the scenery is charming. From the height, on
which is placed another of the Khedive’s residences, there is a
magnificent panorama in view. In the foreground is the town, harbour,
roadstead, and mouth of the Canal. To the right are the mountain
heights—Gebel Attákah—which hem in the Red Sea. To the left are the rosy
peaks of Mount Sinai, so familiar to all Biblical students as the spot
where the great Jewish Law was given by God to Moses; and between the two,
the deep, deep blue of the Gulf. Near Suez are the so-called “Wells of
Moses,” natural springs of rather brackish water, surrounded by tamarisks
and date-palms, which help to form an oasis—a pic-nic ground—in the
desert. Dean Stanley has termed the spot “the Richmond of Suez.”
Before leaving the Canal on our outward voyage, it will not be out of
place to note the inauguration _fête_, which must have been to M. de
Lesseps the proudest day of a useful life. Two weeks before that event,
the engineers were for the moment baffled by a temporary obstruction—a
mass of solid rock in the channel. “Go,” said the unconquerable projector,
“and get powder at Cairo—powder in quantities; and then, if we can’t blow
up the rock, we’ll blow up ourselves.” That rock was very soon in
fragments! The spirit and _bonhomie_ of Lesseps made everything easy, and
the greatest difficulties surmountable. “From the beginning of the work,”
says he, “there was not a tent-keeper who did not consider himself an
agent of civilisation.” This, no doubt, was the great secret of his grand
success.
[Illustration: OPENING OF THE SUEZ CANAL—PROCESSION OF SHIPS.]
The great day arrived. On the 16th of November, 1868, there were 160
vessels ready to pass the Canal. At the last moment that evening it was
announced that an Egyptian frigate had run on one of the banks of the
Canal, and was hopelessly stuck there, obstructing the passage. She could
not be towed off, and the united efforts of several hundred men on the
bank could not at first move her. The Viceroy even proposed to blow her
up. It was only five minutes before arriving at the site of the accident
that an Egyptian admiral signalled to Lesseps from a little steam-launch
that the Canal was free. A procession of 130 vessels was formed, the steam
yacht _L’Aigle_, _en avant_, carrying on board the Empress of the French,
the Emperor of Austria, and the Viceroy. This noble-hearted Empress, who
has been so long exiled in a country she has learned to love, told Lesseps
at Ismaïlia that during the whole journey she had felt “as though a circle
of fire were round her head,” fearing that some disaster might mar the
day’s proceedings. Her pent-up feelings gave way at last; and when success
was assured, she retired to her cabin, where sobs were heard by her
devoted friends—sobs which did great honour to her true and patriotic
heart.
The Viceroy on that occasion entertained 6,000 foreigners, a large
proportion of whom were of the most distinguished kind. Men of all
nationalities came to honour an enlightened ruler, and witness the opening
of a grand engineering work, which had been carried through so many
opposing difficulties; to applaud the man of cool head and active brain,
who had a few years before been by many jeered at, snubbed, and thwarted.
To suitably entertain the vast assemblage, the Viceroy had engaged 500
cooks and 1,000 servants, bringing many of them from Marseilles, Trieste,
Genoa, and Leghorn.
Although the waters of the Canal are usually placid—almost sleepily
calm—they are occasionally lashed up into waves by sudden storms. One
such, which did some damage, occurred on December 9th, 1877.
And now, before leaving the subject, it will be right to mention a few
facts of importance. The tonnage of vessels passing the Canal quadrupled
in five years. As many as thirty-three vessels have been passing in one
day at the same time, although this was exceptional. In 1874, the relative
proportions, as regards the nationalities of tonnage, if the expression
may be permitted, were as follows:—
English 222,000 tons.
French 103,000 „
Dutch 84,000 „
Austrian 63,000 „
Italian 50,000 „
Spanish 39,000 „
German 28,000 „
Various 65,000 „
The present tonnage passing the Canal is much greater. All the world knows
how and why England acquired her present interest in the Canal, but all
the world does not appreciate its value to the full extent.
Suez has special claims to the attention of the Biblical student, for near
it—according to some, eighteen miles south of it—the children of Israel
passed through the Red Sea; 2,000,000 men, women, and children, with
flocks of cattle went dryshod through the dividing walls of water. Holy
Writ informs us that “the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east
wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were
divided.”(90) The effect of wind, in both raising large masses of water
and in driving them back, is well known, while there are narrow parts of
the Red Sea which have been forded. In the morning “the Egyptians pursued,
and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses,
his chariots, and his horsemen.” We know the sequel. The waters returned,
and covered the Egyptian hosts; “there remained not so much as one of
them.” “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the
Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed
gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown in the sea. * * *
“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen
captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.
“The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.”
[Illustration: CATCHING PELICANS ON LAKE MENZALEH.]