284 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



either to my Paris residence, 9, Eue Eichepance, or 

 else to Messrs. Baring Brothers, or Messrs. Eothschild 

 in London.* 



"The Commission spent upwards of six weeks in 

 Egypt, and after examining carefully the Isthmus of 

 Suez and the various plans proposed for tracing the 

 canal, submitted the following summary report to the 

 Viceroy: 



" ALEXANDRIA, January 2, 1856. 



a Your Highness summoned us to Egypt to examine 

 the question of the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez. 

 "While] supplying us with the means of deciding, de 

 visit, as to the merits of the different solutions pro- 

 posed, you requested us to lay before you the one 

 which was the easiest, the safest, and the most advan- 

 tageous for European commerce. Our explory, 

 favoured by magnificent weather, facilitated and 

 shortened by the ample material means placed at our 

 disposal, is completed. It has revealed to us innu- 

 merable obstacles, not to say impossibilities, for taking 



* Note of the Translator. It may be udded that this scientific 

 commission was not finally completed until the beginning of 

 October, among the members appointed being, in addition to 

 MM. Renaud and Lieussou, for France, M. de Negrelli, for Austria ; 

 Mr. Rendel, for England; Herr Conrad, Inspector of the "VVaterstat, 

 and President of the Society of Civil Engineers, for Holland ; and 

 the Privy Chancellor Lentze, for Prussia. MM. Linant Bey and 

 Mougel Bey came over from Egypt to meet them in Paris, the 

 first meeting being held at M. de Lesseps's residence on the 80th 

 of October, and left Marseilles for Alexandria on the 8th of 

 November. 



