Sea and the Mediterranean is by no means a product of the present
century. The ancient Egyptians do not appear to have cut directly
through the Isthmus, but Herodotus describes a canal made by Necho about
the year 600 B.C., from Suez through the Bitter Lakes to Lake Timsah and
then westward to Bubastis on the Nile. He mentions certain water gates,
and states that vessels took four days in sailing through. This canal
became silted up with sand ages ago, but it was cleared out again and
re-opened in the seventh century of our era by the Caliph Omar, and
traces of it are still visible. According to some recent discoveries in
the chief archives of Venice, as early as the end of the fifteenth
century, when Vasco da Gama had discovered the Cape of Good Hope, and
the Portuguese took that new route to India, hitherto the exclusive
property of the Venetian and Genoese merchants, a re-cutting of the
Isthmus of Suez was thought of. Plans were prepared and embassies sent
to Egypt for paving the way for the accomplishment of this great
enterprise, which, it is said, was only foiled by the persistent
opposition of some patricians, who were probably bribed by foreign gold
to prevent the execution of the plan. One of our Elizabethan poets,
Christopher Marlowe, appears, in the following lines, to have
anticipated M. de Lesseps:—
“Thence marched I into Egypt and Arabia,
And here, not far from Alexandria,
Whereat the Terrene and the Red Sea meet,
Being distant less than full a hundred leagues.
I meant to cut a channel to them both,
That men might quickly sail to India.”
For at that period travellers going to India in the famous sailing
ships, called “East Indiamen,” were obliged to sail round the Cape of
Good Hope and pass from the Southern to the Indian Ocean. The reader who
wishes to understand the importance of the Suez Canal should look at the
map of the Eastern Hemisphere, where he will have no difficulty in
finding the position of the vast continent of Africa, which is washed on
the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the west by the Atlantic, on the
south by the Southern Ocean, and on the east and north-east by the
Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. If he now traces the waterway round
Africa, on coming to the head of the Red Sea he will find the only
interruption of the oceanic continuity in the narrow neck of land called
the Isthmus of Suez. But for this, ships might long ago have made
complete circuits round this vast, and, even as yet, but partially
explored continent. The circuit would, indeed, be a great one of some
15,000 miles; but the barrier that the Isthmus presented to
inter-oceanic communication between the eastern and the western worlds
was a piece of physical geography which has undoubtedly been a most
important factor in determining the course of history. It has been said
that had there existed at Suez a strait like that of Gibraltar or that
of Messina, instead of a sandy isthmus, the achievements of Diaz, Vasco
da Gama, and Columbus would have lost much of their significance; but
the advantages to the world’s commerce would have been incalculable, and
the progress of the race might have been more rapid.
The Emperor Napoleon I. had the idea of restoring the old canal; but it
was only when steam navigation had taken its place on the seas that the
scheme was looked upon as offering any chance of financial success. But
General Chesney, who made some surveys for the French Government in
1830, had come to the conclusion that there was a considerable
difference of level between the two seas—a difference, he calculated, of
about 30 feet. The existence of such a state of things would, of course,
have been very unfavourable for the undertaking; but the General’s
supposition was soon proved to have been erroneous.
The suggestion of carrying out the project of constructing a ship canal
through the Isthmus was seriously revived by Père Enfantin, the St.
Simonian, in the year 1833. He then induced M. Ferdinand Lesseps, the
French vice-consul, and Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, to take some
practical measures towards its accomplishment. Surveys were made, but
owing to the breaking out of a plague, and to other causes, not much
more was heard of the scheme till 1845. In 1846 _La Société d’Etude du
Canal de Suez_ was formed, and among those who turned their attention to
the subject was Robert Stephenson. His report was wholly unfavourable to
the enterprise. He recommended the construction of a railway through
Egypt, and a line was accordingly made between Alexandria and Suez. But,
notwithstanding the opinion of Mr. Stephenson, M. Lesseps persevered
with wonderful energy, believing, on the report of other engineers, that
the scheme could be successfully carried out. It is right, however, to
state that Mr. Stephenson did not say it was impossible to complete the
Suez Canal—he merely gave it as his opinion that the cost of making the
canal, and keeping it in a proper state for navigation, would be so
great that the scheme would not pay. However, in 1854, the Viceroy of
Egypt signed the concession, and in 1860 the work was actually
commenced, but not on a plan that was advocated by the English engineers
of making the canal 25 feet above the sea level. There were also some
political and financial difficulties to be overcome. The Suez Canal
Company, it was said, had expended twelve millions of money in what was
considered to be chiefly shifting sands.
[Illustration:
FIG. 123.—_The Sand-Glass._
]
When the Suez Canal was projected, many prophesied evil to the
undertaking, from the sand of the Desert being drifted by the wind into
the canal, and others were apprehensive that where the canal was cut
through the sand, the bottom would be pushed up by the pressure of the
banks. They imagined that the sand would behave exactly like the ooze of
a soft peat-bog, through which, when a trench has been cut, the bottom
of the trench soon rises, for the soft matter has virtually the
properties of a liquid: it acts, in fact, exactly like very thick
treacle. Sand, however, is not possessed of liquid properties; it has a
definite angle of repose, which is not the case with thin bog. This
behaviour of sand is familiarly illustrated in the sand-glass, which the
diagram Fig. 123, will recall to mind. It may be observed that the sand
falling in a slender stream from the upper compartment is in the lower
one heaped up in a little mound, the sides of which preserve a nearly
constant inclination of about 30°. In this property it is distinctly
different from peat-bog or such-like material, which has no definite
angle of repose. It need hardly be said that all apprehensions as to the
safety of the canal from the causes here alluded to have proved
unfounded.
But if some English engineers appeared to oppose the project, another
eminent one, Mr. Hawkshaw, certainly helped it on at a moment when the
Viceroy of Egypt was losing confidence; and, had his opinion been
adverse to the project reported upon, the Viceroy would certainly not
have taken upon himself additional liability in connection with the
undertaking, and the money expended up to that date would have been
represented only by some huge mounds of sand and many shiploads of
artificial stone, thrown into the bottom of the sea to make the harbour
of Port Saïd. And that M. Lesseps appreciated the good offices of Mr.
Hawkshaw is shown from the fact that, when he introduced that engineer
to various distinguished persons, on the occasion of the opening of the
canal, he said, “This is the gentleman to whom I owe the canal.” It
cannot, therefore, be said of the English nation that they were jealous
of the peaceful work of their French neighbours, or opposed it in any
other sense but as a “non-paying” and apparently unprofitable scheme.
The Canal was opened in great state by Napoleon III.’s Empress Eugénie,
in November, 1869, when a fleet of fifty vessels passed through, and the
fact was thus officially announced in Paris:—“The canal has been
traversed from end to end without hindrance, and the Imperial yacht,
_Aigle_, after a splendid passage, now lies at her moorings in the Red
Sea.
“Thus are realized the hopes which were entertained of this great
undertaking—the joining of the two seas.
“The Government of the Emperor cannot but look with satisfaction upon
the success of an enterprise which it has never ceased to encourage. A
work like this, successfully accomplished in the face of so many
obstacles, does honour to the energetic initiative of the French mind,
and is a testimony to the progress of modern science.”
An Imperial decree was then issued, dated the 19th of November,
appointing M. de Lesseps to the rank of Grand Cross of the Legion of
Honour, in consideration of his services in piercing the Isthmus of
Suez.
The Suez Canal is 88 geographical, or about 100 statute miles long: its
average width is 25 yards, and the minimum depth, 26 feet. At intervals
of five or six miles, the canal is widened, for a short space, to 50
yards, forming thus sidings (_gares_) where only vessels can pass each
other. At these, therefore, a ship has often to wait until a file of
perhaps twenty steamers, coming the other way, has passed. Occasionally
a ship gets across, or “touches,” and then the canal is blocked for
hours. So much inconvenience has been found from the restricted
dimensions of the work, that in 1886 it was proposed to widen the canal,
or, alternatively, to construct a second canal, and use the two like the
lines of a railway, so that vessels would never have occasion to pass
each other. The amount of traffic is very large, and has been steadily
increasing. Thus, in 1874, the tonnage of the vessels passing through
was 5,794,400 tons; in 1880, the tonnage was 8,183,313, and the receipts
of the Company amounted to £2,309,218. In 1875, the British Government
purchased, from the Khedive, £4,000,000 worth of shares.
[Illustration:
FIG. 124.—_A Group of Egyptian Fellahs, and their Wives._
]
The Suez Canal is not so much a triumph of engineering as a monument of
successful enterprise and determination on the part of its great
promoter, M. Lesseps, in the face of great difficulties. According to
the original programme, the canal was to have been constructed by forced
labour, supplied by the Viceroy. The unhappy peasantry of the country,
called “fellahs,” were compelled to give their labour for a miserable
pittance of rice. No doubt, in ancient times, when forced labour was in
use, every peasant might cheerfully work, because it was for the general
benefit to bring sweet water from the Nile to other dry and thirsty
places in Egypt; but to be obliged to work at a waterway of salt, which
was only to be of use to foreigners who passed through the country,
could not be expected of human beings, and therefore the carrying out of
the work was not unaccompanied by cruelties of the nature attending
slave labour in other lands. This was one of the reasons why the late
Lord Palmerston opposed the canal scheme, for the kind hearted statesman
bore in mind the loss of health and life occasioned to poor Egyptians by
this mode of labour, and the more so because it had been originally
proposed that one of the conditions on which the French Company was to
take up the project should be the execution of the work by _free
labour_. In consequence, no doubt, of representations from free
countries, the Porte was induced to put a veto on the employment of
forced labour, and everyone thought that this would be the deathblow to
the completion of the canal: but M. Lesseps did not give way to despair,
and he since stated that if he had depended on the labours of the
fellahs only, the difficulties of the work never could have been
surmounted; and that, in fact, the successful prosecution of the work
was owing to his having turned his attention to the mechanical
contrivances used for dredging on the Thames and the Clyde, from which
he obtained better results in half the time and at half the cost.
[Illustration:
FIG. 125.—_Dredges and Elevators at Work._
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 126.—_Map of the Suez Canal._
]
The dredges used in the construction of the canal were of a new
description. They were wonderful mechanical contrivances, and but for
them the canal would not have been finished. They were not the
contrivance of M. Lesseps, but of one of the contractors, a
distinguished engineer, who received his technical education in France
but his practical experience in England. The use of the dredging
machines was prepared for by digging out a rough trough by spade work,
and as soon as it had been dug to the depth of from six feet to twelve
feet, the water was let in. After the water had been let in, the steam
dredges were floated down the stream, moored along the bank, and set to
work. The dredges were of two kinds. The great _couloirs_ consisted of a
long, broad, flat bottomed barge, on which stood a huge framework of
wood, supporting an endless chain of heavy iron buckets. The chain was
turned by steam, and the height of the axle was shifted from time to
time, so that the empty buckets, as they revolved round and round,
should always strike the bottom of the canal at a fixed angle. As they
were dragged over the soil they scooped up a quantity of mud and sand
and water, and as each bucket reached its highest point in the round, it
discharged its contents into a long iron pipe which ran out at right
angles to the barge. The further extremity of this pipe stretched for
some yards beyond the bank of the canal, and therefore, when the
dredging was going on, there was a constant stream of liquid mud pouring
from the pipe’s mouth upon the shore, and thus raising the height of the
embankment. When the hollow scooped out by the buckets had reached the
required depth, the dredge was moved to another place, and the same
process was repeated over and over again. These stationary dredges,
however, though very effective, required much time in moving, and the
lighter work of the canal was chiefly effected by movable dredges of a
smaller size. These machines were of the same construction as those
described; the only difference was that the mud raised by their agency
was not poured directly on shore by pipes attached to the dredges, but
was emptied in the first instance into large barges moored alongside the
dredge. These barges were divided into compartments, each of which
contained a railway truck, and when the barge was filled it steered away
to the bank, where an elevator was fixed. The trucks, filled with mud
were raised by a crane worked by steam power, and placed upon inclined
rails, attached to the elevator, which sloped upwards at an angle of 45
degrees towards the bank. They were then drawn up the rails by an
endless rope, and as each truck reached the end of the rails its side
fell open, the mud was shot out upon the bank, and the empty truck
returned by another set of rails to the platform on which the elevator
was placed, and was thence lowered into the barge to which it belonged.
As the elevator could unload and re-load a barge much faster than the
dredges could fill it with mud, each elevator was fed by half a dozen
dredges, and thus the mud raised from the canal by several dredges was
carted away without difficulty at one and the same time. As these
floating dredges were much easier to shift than those encumbered by the
long _couloir_ pipes, the work of excavating the bed went on much more
rapidly. But in places where there was any great mass of earth or sand
to be removed, the large _couloirs_ could scoop out a given volume in a
shorter time.
The traveller who wishes to see the canal should go to France, and,
embarking at the port of Marseilles, cross the Mediterranean Sea, and
steam to Port Saïd, which is about 150 miles east of the port of
Alexandria, where the isthmus is crossed by the railroad, and is used by
travellers to India, being known as the “overland route.” And this
railway conveys the mail to and from India, thus saving the great sea
voyage round Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Nevertheless, it involves
two transhipments—from the steamer to the rail at Alexandria, and from
the railway to the steamer at Suez.
[Illustration:
FIG. 127.—_Port Saïd, the Mediterranean entrance to the Suez Canal._
]
Let us notice in order the places passed by the traveller in going from
Port Saïd to Suez and the Red Sea. The arrow (Fig. 126) points in the
direction of the compass, and shows that the canal runs very nearly from
north to south. Port Saïd is the little town at the northern or
Mediterranean entrance to the canal, situated on the flat sands at the
entrance of the canal, and is built chiefly of wood, with straight wide
streets and houses, and although it now contains several thousand
inhabitants, before the making of the canal was begun one hundred people
could hardly have been got together. The town contains nothing deserving
of notice, and has a striking resemblance to the newly settled cities of
America. But in it reside agents who represent numerous varied
interests—administrative, financial, mercantile and political. It is
provided with docks, basins, quays and warehouses, and has a harbour
stretching out a couple of miles or so into the sea, for to that
distance two piers, or rather breakwaters, run out.
Fig. 128 shows these two converging breakwaters, which have been built
out into the Mediterranean from the coast, the larger and more westerly
one being one mile and a half long, the shorter about a mile and a
quarter, and the distances between the two lighthouses erected on the
extremities of the breakwater being half a mile.
The piers are made of concrete which was cast in blocks weighing 10 tons
each. This composition has of late years been greatly approved by
engineers where stone cannot be procured. The sea-face of the great
canal in Holland is composed of a similar artificial stone, and it is
found to bear the wear and tear of the waves almost, if not quite, as
well as ordinary stone. It is stated that 25,000 blocks, each weighing
10 tons, were used. They were not laid with the regularity of ordinary
masonry, but had been dropped from large barges, so that they presented
a very rugged and uneven appearance (Fig. 129); but the object of
throwing out these great bulwarks is for the purpose of preventing the
sand brought down by the Nile silting in and closing up the canal. Along
the western pier there is, from this cause, a constant settlement of
sand, which was partially washed through the interstices left between
the blocks of artificial stone, and might have given some trouble by
forming sandbanks in the harbour; but this was prevented by the
introduction of smaller stones, which could readily be carried out in
boats at the low tide.
[Illustration:
FIG. 128.—_Bird’s-eye View of Port Saïd._
]
Beginning with the Mediterranean Sea and Port Saïd, there is a run of 28
miles to Kantara, through Lake Menzaleh. Although called a lake, it is,
in truth, nothing but a shallow lagoon or swamp, in which water-fowl of
all kinds are very abundant, the great flocks of white pelicans and pink
flamingoes being especially striking. The waters of this lagoon cover
lands that once were fertile, and the salt sea-sands doubtless conceal
the remains of many an ancient town.
[Illustration:
FIG. 129.—_One of the Breakwaters at Port Saïd._
]
Of all portions of the undertaking, this one, M. Lesseps states, was the
most arduous and difficult, though, at the time, it attracted the least
attention. A trough had to be dredged out of the bed of the shallow
lagoon, and on either side of this hollowed out space high sandbanks had
to be erected, and the difficulty of making a solid foundation for these
sand banks was found to be extreme. The difficulty, however, was
surmounted, and such is the excellence of the work, that the water
neither leaks out, nor does any of the brackish water of the lagoon
infiltrate and undermine the great embankments.
[Illustration:
FIG. 130.—_Lake Timsah and Ismaïlia._
]
At Kantara, the canal crosses the track of the highway between Cairo and
Syria—a floating bridge carries the caravans across; and near this spot
is stationed an Egyptian man-of-war, which supplies the police for the
proper watch and ward of the canal. From Kantara to El Fendane is a
distance of 15 miles—that is to say, to the southern extremity of Lake
Ballah, where the canal still passes through sand embankments, raised
within a mere. The lake is, however, almost dried up, and therefore the
difficulties which had to be surmounted at Lake Menzaleh were not felt
here.
The traveller may now be supposed to have arrived at Lake Timsah, where,
no doubt, in the days of the Pharaohs, a lake existed. When taken in
hand by M. Lesseps, it was a barren, sandy hollow, containing a few
shallow pools, through which a man could easily wade, but now it is
filled with the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a pretty, inland,
salt water lake, about three miles in width. On the northern shore
stands the town, or, rather, small settlement of Ismaïlia, which is, in
fact, the “half way house” where most of the officials of the Suez Canal
Company resided, as they could get to either end of the canal with
greater facility, or to Cairo by the railroad, which comes to this
point, and continues, with the canal, to Suez.
[Illustration:
FIG. 131.—_Railway Station at Ismaïlia._
]
When the canal was opened, in November, 1869, Ismaïlia was the scene of
the most brilliant part of the opening ceremony, in which the French
Empress Eugénie, the Empress of Austria, the Crown Prince of Prussia,
and other distinguished personages took share. The Khedive built himself
a summer palace, and M. Lesseps erected a villa, and the town was most
artistically laid out, with every prospect of becoming a flourishing
place. But the drainage had been so entirely overlooked, that it is said
the sewage found its only outlet in the fresh water canal; and the
consequence was fever broke out and so infected the town, that it was
soon almost quite deserted. In 1882, Ismaïlia was once more the scene of
bustle and activity, for here was the base of Sir Garnet Wolseley’s
operations in his brilliant campaign against Arabi. The British Navy
entered the canal, and took possession of Ismaïlia, where the army and
the military stores were rapidly concentrated. From this place, Sir
Garnet advanced along the route of the railway and the Sweet Water
Canal, and, after storming the lines of Tel-el-Kebir, occupied Cairo,
without further resistance, after a campaign of only three weeks’
duration.
From Lake Timsah to the Bitter Lakes the canal again passes for eight
miles or so through the desert, where, by partial excavations by hand
labour and subsequent flooding to admit the dredges, it was considered
that a sufficiently deep channel could be made. The _couloirs_ were set
to work, when suddenly “a lion arose in their path” in the shape of a
great rock, about 80 feet in length, and lying 12 feet only below the
surface, and right in the middle of the main channel. If anything could
show the indomitable energy of M. Lesseps it was his courage in dealing
with this difficulty, and at a time when a few months only could elapse
before the advertised day of the opening. He attacked the sunken rock
with gunpowder. A large raft, or floor, supported on barges, was moored
over the sunken rock, and from this men, armed with long poles shod with
steel, drilled numerous holes, into which charges of gunpowder were
placed, and fired in the usual manner by the electric battery. This
temporary obstruction occurred opposite to the landing place at
Sérápeum.
[Illustration:
FIG. 132.—_The Viceroy of Egypt cutting the last embankment of the
Reservoir of the Plain of Suez, to unite the two seas—the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea._
]
Passing by Sérápeum, the traveller arrives at a vast expanse of water
called the “Bitter Lakes,” because the dry sandy hollow formerly
contained a marsh, or mere, of very brackish water. The possibility of
keeping this great area filled with sea water had been denied by the
opponents of the canal, who said the water would sink into the sand or
be evaporated by the intense heat of the sun; but none of these
prognostications have been verified, and it is now a great inland sea,
far surpassing Lake Timsah, being 25 miles long and from six to seven
miles wide. The only difficulty in filling this enormous natural basin
arose from the rapidity and force with which the waters flowed in. This
was done when the water at Suez was at low tide, and then subsequently
the Red Sea was allowed to flow in. Though the expanse of water in the
Bitter Lakes is great enough, the available channel is still narrow. But
the steamers can proceed at full speed, as here there are no banks to be
washed away.