GENERAL VIEW OF SUEZ. 
Suez (in Arabic, Suweis) stands on a corner of land projecting into the head of the 
Arabian Gulf, distant from Cairo about sixty four geographical, or seventy-five English 
statute miles. The site of Kolsum (Tell Kolsum) is still traceable, a third of a 
mile from Suez. The names of Arsinoe, Cleopatris, and Clysma, are given to 
imaginary sites in the neighbourhood; all of which were probably only elder forms 
of Kolsum. 
“Even among the miserable cities of Turkey and Egypt, few present so wretched 
an appearance as Suez. Standing on the borders of the Desert and on the shore 
of the Sea, with bad and unwholesome water, and not a blade of grass growing 
around it, and depending upon Cairo for the food which supports its inhabitants, it 
sustains a poor existence by the trade of the great caravan for Mecca, and the small 
commerce between the ports of Cosseir, Djiddeh, and Mocha. A new project has 
lately been attempted here, which, it might be supposed, would have a tendency to 
regenerate the fallen city. The route to India by the Red Sea is in the full tide 
of successful experiment; the English flag is often seen waving in the harbour; and 
about once in two months an English Steamer arrives from Bombay: but even the 
clatter of a steam-boat is unable to infuse life into its sluggish population .” 1 
It is only eight years since this description was written, on the spot; and now 
there are not only arrivals and departures of the English steam-packets, twice in the 
month, for England and Bombay, but steam communications even to China. The 
rapid and valuable intercourse now established between Europe and our Asiatic 
possessions across the African Isthmus, has, in spite of every disadvantage of climate 
and infertility, already raised Suez to an importance which no town on the Gulf ever 
possessed before. 
The place of the Passage of the Israelites has excited much learned inquiry. It 
has been generally supposed to commence from the mouth of the Wady Tawarik, 
south of Ras Atakah. But this hypothesis seems untenable, from the breadth of the 
Sea, which there is twelve geographical miles. 
The more probable conception is, that the passage was made across the small arm 
of the Sea, which runs up by Suez, a breadth of less than four miles. From the 
Sacred Narrative, a North (or N.E.) wind blew “all night” (uncovering the shoals 
1 Stephens’s Incidents of Travel. 
