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the yearly decaying leaves of a rank tropical vegetation. The Blue Nile enters 

 the Nile proper at Khartoum ; and though the White Nile contributes a much 

 larger quantity of water than the Blue tributary, it only dilutes the mud and 

 gives the whole body of the river force to reach the sea. The quantity must 

 be enormous ; for being discharged by two mouths, a larger volume of muddy 

 water reaches the sea than if the discharge were effected by seven small ones as 

 in ancient times. Since visiting Egypt, and reading all I could upon the subject, 

 I am quite confirmed in the opinion that the river finding the seven small mouths 

 insufficient, formed the two present ones as the only means of ridding itself of 

 the wall of water coming from the South. And, again, when Egypt was 

 governed by enlightened and beneficent monarchs, millions of acres which are 

 now desert swarmed with people making the most of every drop of the 

 inundation, and thus retaining perhaps all the alluvium to fertilize the land, 

 that is now annually discharged into the sea, and threatens to block up the 

 harbour of Port Said. 



On leaving Port Said, the canal enters Lake Menzaleh, through which the 

 channel is excavated for 29 miles to Kantara, a station on the desert route of 

 the caravans from Cairo to Syria. The course of the canal then lies through 

 low sand-hills to Lake Ballah, which it traverses for a distance of 8 miles, and 

 then enters a deep cutting extending from El Ferdane to Lake Timsah. Near 

 El Guisr, 4 miles south of El Ferdane, the deepest cutting throughout the 

 whole line occurs, and it had to be excavated varying from 60 feet to 70 feet 

 in depth. 



The characteristics of the first half of the maritime canal are, that about 

 34 miles of the course lie through lakes, and the remainder through elevated 

 plateaux and low sand hills. 



The town of Ismailia has been founded on the northern side of Lake 

 Timsah. 



The second half of the canal divides into two portions : in the first the 

 canal skirts the eastern shore of Lake Timsah, and enters the cuttings at 

 Toussoum and Serapeum ; in the second, on emerging from the Serapeum 

 cutting, the canal pursues a central course through the Bitter Lakes for 

 24 miles, going through the last cutting at Chalouf, and enters the Red Sea 

 a mile to the south-east of Suez, the last twelve miles to the Bed Sea 

 being through a continuous level plain slightly above the level of the sea. 



The fresh water of the Nile is brought by a canal to Ismailia from Cairo 

 and thence to Suez, which used to be wretchedly supplied with water, giving 

 the administration of the canal the power of growing anything under such 

 a sun. 



The question of tolls can only be decided when the canal is fairly opened, 

 for it is questionable if any vessels without at least auxiliary steam power could 

 take advantage of the Suez Canal, on account of the baffling winds in the 

 Mediterranean and the Bed Sea, as by this line all the advantages of the trade 

 winds, the monsoons, and great circle sailing must be lost. 



The three objections urged by the late Robert Stephenson, after walking 

 twice over the whole ground, and thoroughly examining the project, are still 

 in the o}finion of most practical men as patent as ever. These were — 



1. The difficulty of keeping the entrance open at Port Said, for two 

 reasons, the first of which was the shallowness of the sea for a long distance 

 from the shore ; the second was the constant flow of the sea, driven by the 

 almost continual N.W. wind from west to east, carrying with it the mud of 

 the Nile, from its two mouths at Damietta and Bosetta. This objection M. de 

 Lesseps proposed to obviate in his first plan by making the piers or breakwaters 

 six miles long. Mr. Stephenson still objected that the flow of the water 

 heavily charged with mud would soon render the sea so shallow on the 



