THE JOURNEY TO INDIA. 15 



port at the Mediterranean entrance of the canal, a very important, 

 but very dreary, dirty, and uninviting modem town, built upon the 

 sand and infested by Arabs and fleas. But deliverance came at 

 last. I embarked one night upon the Austrian-Lloyd steamer 

 Memfi, and when I awoke at sunrise the nest morning, Port Said 

 lay far behind us and we were steaming slowly through the great 

 canal. Some one had told me that this passage was an " uninter- 

 esting and monotonous voyage through a big ditch," but I do not 

 beheve he ever saw the canal. After leaving Port Said, the channel 

 is cut through Lake Menzaleh, a vast but shallow lagoon, swarming 

 with wild fowl. From that, a cutting through a low, sandy plain 

 leads into another lagoon, called Ballah Lake, which is also tra- 

 versed by the canal. From Ballah Lake to Lake Timsah the canal 

 is cut through the plateau of El Guisr, the highest ground on the 

 route. The banks grow higher and higher, and the channel nar- 

 rower, until we suddenly emerge upon Lake Timsah (Crocodile 

 Lake), nearly midway between the two seas. On the western bank 

 of the lake stands Ismailia, a pretty little town, a garden in the 

 desert, with substantial houses, fine streets, shady avenues, green 

 gardens, and aU the institutions of business and religion pertaining 

 to a modem town. 



Crossing the lake, we entered another cutting several miles in 

 length, full of curves and gares, or sidings where ships can meet 

 and pass each other. After steaming slowly all the afternoon 

 through the desert, we anchored just before sunset in the deepest 

 part of the Great Bitter Lake; What an odd sensation it is to 

 cross a desert in a steamship ! Never have I seen water look so 

 smiUng and delicious as do these clear blue lakes in the midst of a 

 scorching and lifeless expanse of brown sand. As the sun set, the 

 full moon rose, lighting up a broad, golden track across the glassy 

 surface of the lake, the stars came out until we had one shining 

 firmament above and another in the lake below, the evening air 

 was balmy and pure, and, as if to crown all these delights, the bell 

 rang for supper. 



The Suez Canal is 86 miles in entire length, 21 of which are 

 through the three larger lakes. It is 26 feet deep in mid-channel, 

 and the bed is 72 feet wide. At the surface, the width varies from 

 35U to 196 feet, according to the books, but in the narrowest cut- 

 tings, the surface width looked more like 96 than 196 feet. Vessels 

 are not to steam faster than five and one-third miles per hour in the 

 canal The toll charged by the company is thirteen francs per foot 



