THE DUKE OF ST. ALBAN'S UPON THE SUEZ CANAL.

Southland Times, Issue 969, 15 June 1868, Page 3

THE DUKE OF ST. ALBAN'S UPON THE SUEZ CANAL.

(Prom the London "Times.")

Sir — I started last week for the works on the Maritime Canal, across the Isthmus of Suez, in the belief I was approaching an indefinite Erench project just sufficiently real to ground claims for indemnification or imperial arbitration upon. As I do not believe in England the present extent of these works is at all believed, and as l have heard regret expressed that none of the many English who have visited them have thought it worth while to make known the truth, I am induced to send you this account of what I myself saw, without hazarding an opinion whether it will prove a remunerative investment," which, I think may fairly be left to be decided hereafter.

"La Compagnie Universelle dv Canal Maritime de Suez" was called into existence by the unfailing energy of M. Lesseps, a Erench diplomatist, until then unknown to the mercantile world, -who conceived the idea of joining the Mediterranean to the Eed Sea by a salt-water canal, capable of being used by the large shipping of the present day. This every one knows. What everyone does not know is the advanced state of these works, as patent to all who, like myself, have passed along the line from Suez to Portsaid. The undertaking may be said to have been commenced in 1860 ; but the approved modes of carrying out such a work did not then exist, and the first years were necessarily spent in discovering the best machines by which to excavate the sand of the desert into a channel for the waters of the two seas. The thousands of workmen in

\ those early days of the canal depended on the precarious supply of water brought on camels from the Nile, and on biscuit, of which there was never more than a three days' ration on the spot. I was assured those were time 3 of intense anxiety for tho apostles of civilization in the desert. It was essential, therefore, to have an abundant supply of fresh water at all points of the works, both for the men and the machines. The first years were occupied in making the necessary trials of machines, and in taking the I water of the Nile in the Eresh-water • Canal to Ishmailia and to Suez, and by I pipes to Portsaid. Thus at first the i Maritime Canal made slow progress, and ■ this we heard in England. But of late ■ years the experienced contractors, Messrs | Borell and Lavalley have been induced to | undertake the management, and the work has made giant progress. Machines, after several failures, have been invented to do the work required, and it is confidently expected the Maritime Canal along its whole length will be opened in October of this year. Who can tell that ' we in England may not be frightened out j of our senses by hearing that the Erench ' Emperor has started for Egypt to perform this important ceremony ? Atthe Suez end of the canal everything seemed activity. I saw four large floating steam dredges at work, clearing a channel through the shallows of the Eed Sea, and others being put together. I saw the Arabs busy on the otl;er side of an embankment which divided the sea from the works, furrowing out the course of the j canal. I had seen this part three months j before, and the progress had been con- ; siderable. I saw the course of the canal j beyond this marked by the enormous \ dredges standing above the mirage and ' the desert. There are 60 large and 12 i small steam floating dredges, with more than a hundred attendant steam barges in I work. The larger ones cost from £15,000 '• to £20,000, which may give you some | idea of their size. They discharge their j buckets of sand into the steam barges, or ! into iron acqueducts 220 ft. in length, ) which pass their contents over the banks f of the canal on to the desert beyond. \ 48,000,000 of cubic feet were thus dis- 1 placed last month, and 60,000,000, it is | thought, will be done per month in the summer days. The last - mentioned machines are an invention peculiar to these works, and are due to M. Lavalley, who may be called the maker, as M. Lesseps is the originator, of the Suez Canal. The great difficulty has been found after the water rises before the dredges can be floated.

As the Salt-Water Canal is not filled between Suez and Ishmailia, passengers and cargo are forwarded thence on the Eresh- Water Canal in steam launches and barges. The canal is of ordinary size, and will allow two large barges to pass each other, but I wish to speak only of the great Salt- Water Canal. The first point of interest after leaving Suez is at Great Shalouf. This is the most important cutting next to El Guisr. It is four miles in length, through clay, stone, and sand, and is dry at present. Three thousand European and Arab workmen are kept here. I was more struck here than anywhere else on the works. The canal is cut to its extreme depth, and the water will stand 26ft deep at low water in the Eed Sea. You look down into this enormous dry channel, with its busy hive of workmen scooping away the ground and filling the trucks, which stationary engines draw up and replace by others ; and while looking down on this magnificent work you almost persuade yourself to believe in large steamers passing to and fro here between the West and East, in the coffers of the company being filled with their dues, and in delighted shareholders drawing large dividends.

At the Serapium, some distance further inland, you come on another piece of the canal finished, and it is here you meet the waters of the Mediterranean, which have been brought over half the whole distance in the Maritime Canal and are kept back, from the other- portion of the works by an embankment of earth. Erom the Serapium you pass to Ishmailia, the capital of the company, standing on the pretty saltwater lake, Timsale, which has been filled from the Mediterranean to the depth of 20ffc. Here are the homes of the company's officers. Church, gardens, streets, even the dogs, are European, and you forget that the Arab rules the land. I was tfhere the last days of the Carnival. Masqueraders promenaded the streets, and a ball was to be given at the Assem-bly-room. If financial ruin is imminent, it sits lightly on the good people of the Isthmus.

Ishmailia, the old Arab name of which is Tiinsab, has been renamed after the present Viceroy, as Portsaid was after the last. They might more properly have called it after M. Lesseps and M. Lavalley, but the Frenchman know well " how to brush the coat of the Turk the right way." The town does not stand on the Maritime Canal, but in connected with it by a small branch. You pass now to Portsaid on the Maritime Canal. Its width is 300 ft through, which is reduced for economy to 180 ft through the cutting of El Guisr, a short distance from Ishmailia. At E Guisr you are half-way and the course of the canal passes into a deep cutting made through a high ridge of sand. Here wast the severest work.

El G-uisr is a pretty cantonment, with its Christain church and Arab mosque, its neat houses, and the pretty garden of M. G-olja, the Chief engineer. Here, as at Ishmailia, you are told how few years it has been reclaimed " from the scorpiou and serpent of the desert." After leaving El G-uiar, the canal passes through a fiat plain of sand till it enters the |lagoons near the sea. A branch of the Nile flowed here in ancient times ; the ground is Nile deposit, and was formerly productive. It is now desert, but, as the Arab say, " Where the Turk places his foot, the grass ceases to grow." It was supposed from the loose nature of the ground here, that difficulty might be found in forming the channel, but M. Lavelleyhas

j excavated it to the full depth of 26ft., and satisfactorily proved that mud and sand are the same in the Isthmus of Suez as in other parts of the earth. Tho canal now enters the Mediterranean, an- 1 forms the harbor of Portsaid. JSi^ht year since there was a narrow strip of sand between the sea aud the lagoon, without a hut on it. I now saw a town of 10,000. inhabitants — a rapidly increasing Venice — and a port full of large shipping. Ido not believe there is a single person on the Isthmus who is not firmly convinced that the undertaking will succeed. They see in a marvellously short space of time a population of 20,000 Europeans alone created in the middle of the desert, and supplied with necessaries and luxuries. They see a great port spring up under their very eyes as if by magic, and the object of their great enterprise two-thirds completed, and they may be excused if they fall down and worship M. Lesseps and the company. I came a sceptic, and leave a true believer in the completion within a short time ot the canal across the Isthmus of Suez. The kindness and courtesy we everywhere experienced were such as I shall always remember with pleasure, and I heard on every, hand expressed the gratification all felt in showing English people the progress they were making. This account is necessarily most imperfect, but I am anxious to convey to my countrymen what I have seen done on the Isthmus, and so I take a Briton's recourse, and write to the " Times." I am, yourj truly, St. Albjns. Portsaid, Egypt, Eeb. 29.