THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 171 



" c Napoleon, directly he arrived in Egypt, ap- 

 pointed a commission of engineers to ascertain 

 whether it would not be possible to re-establish and 

 to perfect this mode of communication. The question 

 was decided in the affirmative, and when the learned 

 M. Lepere handed him the report, he said : " The 

 work is great, and though I shall not now be able to 

 accomplish it, the Turkish Government will some day, 

 perhaps, reap the glory of carrying it out. 



" ' The time has come to realise Napoleon's predic- 

 tion. The piercing of the Isthmus of Suez is certainly 

 an enterprise destined to contribute more than any 

 other to the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, 

 and to demonstrate to those who announced its 

 approaching ruin that it still has a fruitful existence 

 before it, and that it is capable of adding a brilliant 

 page the more to the history of human civilisation. 



" l Why is it that the Governments and people of the 

 "West are at the present moment coalesced to maintain 

 the Sultan in the possession of Constantinople ? and 

 why does the Power which has threatened to deprive 

 him of it meet with such opposition if it be not that 

 the passage from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea 

 is of such importance that the European Power which 

 became mistress of it would overrule all the rest ? 



" ' If a similar and still more important position 

 were established in another part of the Ottoman 

 Empire, and if the commerce of the world were made 

 to pass through Egypt, the position of the Empire 



