108 THE SEA. 



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,* 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 Said 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 Said Pacha in his tent on a plain between Alexandria and Lake 

 Marcotis, 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 Said Pacha a few 



* M. de Lesseps acknowledges frankly that the English people were always with him, and cites example 

 after example as in the case of the then Mayor of Liverpool, who would not allow him to pay the ordinary 

 expenses of a meeting. He says: "While finding sympathy in the commercial and lettered classes, I found 

 heads of wood among the politicians." There were, however, many who supported him in all his ideas, 

 prominently among whom the present writer must place Richard Cobden, 



