76 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



tunate blunder in thus opposing a work which will 

 be more useful to British commerce than to all the 

 rest of the world. This course is all the more ill- 

 judged because it has no chance of succeeding, and 

 if, in the eyes of some politicians, the end justifies the 

 means, Lord Palmerston's conduct, in his deplorable 

 campaign against the Suez Canal, has not even the 

 chance of succeeding. 



" Permit me to make some minor criticisms with 

 regard to certain details of your remarkable speech. 

 No doubt what you say about the workmen in Egypt 

 holds very true of the time when you were travelling 

 through the country. But since the accession of the 

 new Viceroy there has been a great change. The 

 cleaning out and the enlargement of the Mahmoudie 

 Canal in April, 1856, prove that at the present time 

 public works are carried out with due humanity, and 

 that the task set the workmen is neither beyond their 

 strength nor fatal to their health. Out of 115,000 

 men assembled for a full month, not more than five 

 or six per thousand fell ill. I doubt whether we 

 could show a better average than this in Europe. In 

 making the Suez Canal, it will be very easy to bring 

 the Nile water as far as Lake Timsah, in the centre of 

 the isthmus, which it reaches even now when the 

 river rises. This region, now barren and uncultivated, 

 formerly had a considerable population, and we dis- 

 covered there the ruins of many cities. It was the 

 land of Goshen spoken of in the Bible. 



