ship can go through
at a time, if she meets another, one of them must stop and tie up. There
are telegraph stations at every siding, and every ship entering the
canal is controlled all the way by an elaborate system of signals which
tells the pilot exactly what he is to do, whether he must "shunt into a
siding," to use railway language, or if he may go right ahead.

Directly we are in the canal we see over the banks on both sides; on the
west is a wide sheet of water lit up to smoky-red by the reflection of
the sinking sun. Flocks of storks and pelicans and other birds cover it
at certain times of the year to fish in the shallow salt waters, for
this is a salt lake, a sort of overflow from the sea. One day it will be
drained and then crops can grow upon it. The canal is cut through it and
hemmed in by an embankment; farther on it runs through the desert and
then goes through another lake. For the greater part of the way a
railway line runs beside it, passing through Ismailia, the junction for
Cairo, and going on to Suez, and from some parts of this line you can
see a strange spectacle, for, as no water is visible, the ships appear
to be gliding along the top of a sandbank; there is apparently just a
huge modern steamer lost among the sandhills and making the best of her
way back to the sea!

The pilot who is on board now takes us to Ismailia, half-way down, and
then another replaces him as far as Suez, where the canal ends. Every
ship over one hundred tons is compelled to carry a pilot, who is
responsible for her while she is in the difficult channel. And, indeed,
a pilot is necessary, for the canal is not by any means a straight, deep
trench; there are curves where it is a delicate job to manoeuvre a
ship of any length, and in places in the deeper lakes the course is only
marked by buoys. It needs a man who spends his whole time at the work
and gives all his attention to it. The danger at the curves is lest the
propeller at the stern should come in contact with the banks, so the
ship has to be manoeuvred most slowly and carefully round them. Only
at one place in the whole length of the canal was no digging out
necessary. This is in the great Bitter Lake, where for eight miles the
water is deep enough for the ships to pass safely.

There is not much to see at first; the banks are lined by scrubby
bushes, and on them, in a sandy open patch, we see a man falling and
bowing at his evening devotions; a few camels pass al