AND THE MALAY STATES J 



by two breakwaters, that extend out into the shallows, one 7,000 feet, the 

 other 6,000 feet. 



We expected to get away early the next morning, but the mail from 

 Brindisi being late, it was four o'clock in the afternoon before we en- 

 tered the canal. According to rules, we steamed at four miles an hour, 

 tying up to the bank when another boat was met. As we passed by three 

 during the night, this occasioned quite a delay. It was cool, and 

 a light overcoat was necessary after the sun set, but we did not stay long 

 on deck as both sand flies and mosquitoes were quite abundant. 



In the light of our own American canal projects, it is interesting 

 to remember that the Suez plan was entertained and dismissed as im- 

 practicable by Napoleon I, who was advised by his engineers that the 

 Red Sea was thirty-three feet higher than the Mediterranean, and later 

 when M. de Lesseps had proved that the difference in levels was but six 



IN THE SUEZ CANAL. 



inches, such an eminent authority as Robert Stephenson declared the 

 plan to be commercially unsound. There was also a rival plan brought 

 out for a 250-mile canal from Alexandria to Suez. Nevertheless the great 

 work was completed. It is one hundred miles long, only about one-quar- 

 ter of it being artificially made, the rest traversing natural lakes such 

 as Bitter Lake and Lake Timsah. The plan of the canal was for a depth 

 of twenty-six feet, the bottom of the ditch being seventy-two feet wide 

 and the top about three hundred feet. This was carried out in places, 

 but where the digging was especially hard it is .somewhat narrower. The 

 canal shows a slight current, and slowly though the boats go through it, 



