aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

270 AROUND THE WORLD.
This canal, uniting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea
and the vast waters of the Indian Ocean, one hundred miles
in length, three hundred and twenty feet in width at the
top, two hundred and forty-six feet at the bottom, and
twenty-six feet deep, was formally opened on the 13th of
October, 1867. At this time, as fortune would have it, we
were in Constantinople, privileged to see the Austrian
Francis Joseph, the Prussian Frederick William, the Italian
Amadeus, now ex-King of Spain, with others in authority,
on their way to the fetes and festivities consequent upon the
interesting occasion. Prophetic politicians. Lord Palmerston,
and EngUsh aristocrats, to the contrary, the Suez Canal
is a grand success.
Formerly five thousand vessels sailed to India every year
around the Cape of Good Hope. Now over a thousand of
these pass through the Suez Canal ; and the number will increase,
especially since the tolls are so fairly assessed. By
this canal the distance between London and Bombay has been
reduced to 3,050 miles, from 5,950 by the Cape.
This canal,
a colossal work, was built at an expense of sixty millions of
dollars, one-half of which was contributed by the Khedive
himself. Such ambition is laudable.
Considering the shifting nature of the sand, the heated barrenness
of the desert, the difiiculty in procuring fresh water,
no one can gaze upon the numerous steamers — English
screws of two thousand tons and more — driving along this
desert-cut furrow filled Avith water, and not admire the
skill
of the French engineer, and the enterprise of the Khedive.
Egypt that was, and then was not, is now waking from the
dreamy slumbers of weary centuries.
FROM SUEZ TO CAIRO.
The Dead, Red, and Mediterranean Seas
evidently constituted,
in the almost measureless past, one body of water.
At a later period the Red and Mediterranean Seas were
united, as the sandy contour of the country each side of the
isthmus plainly indicates.