414 



NOETH-EAST AFEICA. 



Meuufieli Canal intersects the large island of Shalaganeh, which has been converted 

 by walls and ramparts into a fortified stronghold. This is the important fortress 

 of Saadieh, which at once commands both branches of the Nile, and the two 

 principal lines of railway in Lower Egypt. This colossal work, the first stone of 

 which was laid by Mohammed Ali in the year 1847, was originally planned for the 

 purpose of reclaiming many tens of thousands of acres of waste land and regulating 

 the na\dgation throughout the whole of Lower Egypt. But the enthusiasm of the 

 Albanian viceroy was not sustained by an equal degree of perseverance, and some 

 parts of the general design were either neglected or indifferently executed. Hence 

 the foundations have partly given way, wide openings are visible in many of the 



Fig. 127. — Barrage of the Nile. 

 Scale 1 : 110,000. 



21 Jlilcs. 



arches, and of the three canals, the Sharkieh, Beharah, and Menufieh, that should 

 have been excavated, the last-mentioned alone has been completed. 



Nevertheless even in its present unfinished state the barrage of the Nile is bj* 

 no means an altogether useless work, the lamentable monument of an aimless prodi- 

 gality, as it has been so often described. It serves at least every year to raise 

 by 6 or 7 feet the water level of the main stream. According to the English 

 engineer Fowler, a farther outlay of about one million sterling would be needed to 

 raise the level by 16 feet, as originally intended, to strengthen the foundations, and 

 complete the system of canalisation. But at the same time it would be also 

 necessary to modify the original plan, in order to prevent the constant accumula- 

 tions of sedimentary matter above the barrage, or else construct navigable canals 

 along this section of the Nile. 



