236 THE MARITIME CANAL OF SUEZ. 



Omar, repaired it, and named it, " The Canal of the Commander of 

 the Faithful ; " under which title it continued to be used for over a 

 century, when an Arab chief, whose appellatives ran to the prodigious 

 length of, Mohammed Ben-Ali-Ben-Abou-Thaleb, and he having 

 revolted against the reigning Khalif, whose appellatives were 

 still more ponderous, Abou-dja-far Abdoullah-Ben-Moham-Med-el- 

 Mauson, caused it to be blocked up, a.d. 767. 



Napoleon Buonaparte, while in Egypt in 1798, conceived the 

 great idea, after his temporary conquest of Egypt, of securing com- 

 munications from Europe to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez, and thus 

 be enabled to conquer India. He sent Le Pfere, and a Commission 

 of Engineers, to decide on the best means of carrying out the scheme, 

 but as their report declared that the waters of the Mediterranean 

 were a considerable distance below the level of tlje waters of the 

 Red Sea, and, that to construct such a water-way between the two 

 continents would flood the whole country ; the project was aban- 

 doned, until 1852, when its famous modern projector, Ferdinand 

 de Lesseps, unearthed at Alexandria the researches of Le Pbre, and 

 the Commission of Napoleon. 



THE SCHEME OF M. DE LESSEPS. 



The idea of piercing the Isthmus of Suez first presented itself to 

 Ferdinand de Lesseps in the year 1831, when he was Consul for 

 France at Tunis. At that date he visited Alexandria, and made 

 the acquaintance of the French Consul, M. Mirault, who interested 

 him in the subject, by placing before him Le Pfere's Report on the 

 " Project of the Canal," which referred to the various attempts that 

 had been made to solve the problem, from the days of Pharaoh to 

 those of Napoleon Buonaparte. From this date, 1831, and for a 

 period of 2 1 years, the subject claimed his constant thought and study, 

 and in 1852 he drew up a Scheme for its construction, which he 

 forwarded to Abbas Pasha, the Viceroy of Egypt, for his considera- 

 tion, but it was not favourably received, for Abbas Pasha was a 

 weak and dissolute Ruler, and for two years M. de Lesseps was obliged 

 to abandon his project until a more favourable time. Eventually, 

 in 1854, after the violent death of Abbas, Mohammed Said Pasha, 

 son of Mehemet Ali, became Viceroy, and this change in the 

 Government of Egypt was favourable to the designs of M. de 



