Paris
on the 5th of December.

[Illustration: _EMPRESS EUGENIE._]

The opening of the canal across the isthmus of Suez, which was
in a manner to unite the Eastern with the Western world, caused
the eyes of all Christendom to be fixed on Egypt,--the venerable
great-grandmother of civilization. The great work had been completed,
in spite of Lord Palmerston's sincere conviction, which he lost no
opportunity of proclaiming to the world, that it was impossible
to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The sea-level, he
said, was not the same in the two seas so that the embankments
could not be sustained, and drift-sands from the desert would fill
the work up rapidly from day to day. Ismail Pasha, the khedive
of Egypt, had made the tour of Europe, inviting everybody to the
opening, from kings and kaisers, empresses and queens, down to
members of chambers of commerce and marine insurance companies.
Great numbers were to be present, and the Empress Eugenie was to
be the Cleopatra of the occasion. But suddenly the khedive was
threatened with a serious disappointment: the sultan, his suzerain,
wanted to join in the festivities; and if he were present, _he_
must be the chief personage, the khedive would be thrust into a
vassal's place, and all his glory, all his pleasure in his fete,
would be gone.

The ancient Egyptians, whose attention was much absorbed in waterworks
and means of irrigation, had, as far back as the days of Sesostris,
conceived the idea of communication between the Nile and the Red
Sea. Traces of the canal that they attempted still remain. Pharaoh
Necho, in the days of the Prophet Jeremiah, revived the project.
Darius and one of the Ptolemies completed the work, but when Egypt
sank back into semi-barbarism, the canal was neglected and forgotten.
It does not appear, however, that the Pharaohs ever thought of
connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The canal of Sesostris
and of Pharaoh Necho was a purely local affair, affecting Egyptian
commerce alone.

Some modern Egyptian engineers seem first to have conceived the
project of a Suez canal; but the man who accomplished it was the
engineer and statesman, M. de Lesseps. In spite of all manner of
discouragements, he brought the canal to completion, supported
throughout by the influence and authority of the khedive. The first
thing to be done was to supply the laborers and the new town of
Ismailia with drinking water, by means of a narrow freshwater