struction of artificial lakes, the diversion of the courses of streams (branches of the Nile), enclosing of stone reservoirs, and so on, appear to have occupied all generations. The skill and labour-power being theirs, the application of them in this way was obvious, where terrestrial water was of such importance. It does not appear, however, to have occurred to any one before Sesostris to open up a water-communication with the Red Sea. He conceived such a design, and some say that he executed it; but there is no certainty as to whether he did the latter or not. Traces of a canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea have certainly been discovered; and it is known that Pharaoh-Neco either re-formed that which Sesostris had before made, or was the author of the work. "It went off," says Mr Kenrick, "from the Nile in the neighbourhood of the modern town of Belbeis, supposed to represent the Bubastis Agria of the Greeks, and ran eastward through a natural valley, the Goshen of Jewish history, till it reached the Bitter Lakes, which derive their quality from the saline impregnations of the Desert. The influx of the waters of the Nile rendered them sweet, and they abounded in fish and aquatic birds. Issuing from these, it pursued

a southerly course to Suez. Towards the western end its traces are very visible notwithstanding the deposit of the Nile, which has partly filled it up; towards the east, where the influence of the Desert is more powerful, it has nearly disappeared." Neco did not, however, perfect his canal, though he expended myriads

of men in the excavation. Darius, who followed him on the work, effected the junction with the sea. Ptolemy II. completed the operation, and added a flood-gate. The work, after all, was abandoned, and became only a relic of past greatness and daring and skill. As an antiquity, the French explored its course during their occupation of Egypt at the beginning of the century.

Although to connect the Red Sea with the Nile was in a manner to connect it with the Mediterranean, the junction of the two seas does not seem to be what the Pharaohs had in view. They desired to make a port on the Red Sea available for shipping their own produce, and for trade between Egypt and the East, and something like a dockyard seems to have been established by them at Suez. What thought of barbarous Europe or her interests had great Egypt when she did this? what recked Europe whether Egypt did it

or not?

Now let fall the curtain on old Egypt.

Raise the curtain again on the latter part of the nineteenth century after Christ, and what is the scene? The nations of the West grown to manhood, and civilised as no nations of the earth have ever before been, have penetrated to the ends of the world, and carried wealth and skill and energy into every zone. They have made the sea a highway, and ploughed it with keels borne down by mighty freights. The West and East, no longer strange one to another, advance each year in intercommunion and brother

hood. Means of intercourse, facilities of transport, increase apace, but as yet there is a stern physical impediment-the way is long. Who shall minister to the impatience of modern minds? Who shall abridge the passage between the rising and the setting sun? Then stands forth Egypt-the Egypt that was Pharaoh's-waking from a long sleep, decayed and halting, but trembling with a reflux of life. She vaunts that she will bring two seas together, that she will make the path of Europe and Asia straight. But men doubt-doubt her ability, her resources, her knowledge-doubt her, stamped as she is with the achievements of fifty centuries. She may fail; but while we can look at the Pyramids, and the Sphinx, and the Labyrinth, it is impious to predict a failure.

Egypt came to the rescue, and we have the word of Egypt's Viceroy that the design of piercing the Isthmus was conceived by the native Government, and was not adopted on the motion of a foreigner. This, if we would judge impartially of the achievement, is a very important consideration; for we know how, from the very first, it has been imputed that European intrigue was the parent of the undertaking, and that political, not cosmopolitan, ends were to be served by it. If, then, the voluntary declaration of the Egyptian Prince can be relied on, it was with a view of regaining for his country an honourable place in the councils of the world, and of establishing her fame and his own, that he took the project under his protection, and resolved that the great idea should

unfold into a mighty work.

Well would it have

been for the work and for its promoters if this had been understood ten or twelve years ago! — well, perhaps, for all concerned, except M. F. de Lesseps. He is excepted, because, if there had been only smooth sailing-if there had been no imputation, no misrepresentation, no prophecy of failure, no scoffing — then the perseverance, energy, and confidence of M. de Lesseps could not possibly stand out as they now do. The opponents of the scheme have given opportunity to M. de Lesseps of proving himself to be one of the great. In a tableau toward which the regard of the whole world is directed, his is the principal figure. With the fame of a work which rivals the works of Sesostris and of Cheops, the name of M. de Lesseps is associated for all time.

They who have been watching the close of the affair for the last year or two may well be astonished when they look back and perceive how men refused to believe that which is now a patent fact-nay, how they did believe in and affirm results which have never come to pass. Our English commercial bodies, it is true, highly approved of the scheme when it was propounded to them. They were taken captive, partly by the splendour of the conception, partly by the prospect of expansion which opened to their own profession. They signified their approval and good wishes, but this meant neither belief nor effectual support. It meant that, waiving the question of the practicability of the design in an engineering,

a financial, or a political acceptation, they would be delighted to see accomplished the maritime canal which had been propounded to them by the lively portraiture of M. de Lesseps, or the forcible representations of Mr Lange. The living faith which is necessary to the excavation of long canals no less than to the removal of mountains, was not in them. They wished rather than hoped; and when they looked through the length and breadth of England, they found little to help their unbelief. The Prime Minister, a chief grown grey in worldly wisdom, to whom they were accustomed to look for a shrewd, penetrating, perspicacious opinion of public acts, took the lead in denouncing the scheme. The dismemberment of Turkey and seizure of Egypt by a rival power that should bar us from our empire in the East, were what he saw foreshadowed in M. de Lesseps' prospectus; in M. de Lesseps himself he saw a charlatan. He refused to believe that there was the least intention of making a canal; and boldly affirmed that, if attempted, the work would be frustrated by natural impediments, and the promoters ruined by the failure. Such was the tone of the head of the Government, who did not fail to sway his subalterns, or to send a general misgiving through the country. Referring to the tone of the press, we find many a journal that is now lauding the Canal in all its numbers, and preparing to electrify its readers with a description of the opening ceremonies, pointing the finger of scorn, dropping about such terms as "swindle," "bubble," and