an
trade was merely a secondary and unimportant consideration. Its
connexion with the existence of the agricultural, Egyptian, or Coptic
population, was more immediate.

At present, the question of restoring the canal is solely connected with
the Indian trade. We own we have very great doubts whether its
re-establishment, if destined only to connect our lines of steam-packets
from India to Suez, and from Southampton to Alexandria, would be found a
profitable speculation. The tedious navigation of the Red Sea, and, we
may almost add, of the Mediterranean, would render the route by the Cape
preferable for sailing vessels; and we have not yet arrived at such
perfection in the construction of steamers, as to contemplate their
becoming the only vessels employed in the Indian trade. It appears to
us, that before any reasonable hope of restoring the canal can be
entertained, or, at least, before it can ever be kept open with profit,
that Egypt must be again in a condition to employ the irrigable land on
the banks of the canal for agricultural purposes. Unless the country be
flourishing, the population increasing, and the canal constantly
employed, it would be half-filled with the sand of the desert every
year. On the other hand, as soon as a demand for more irrigable land is
created by an augmented population, a canal of irrigation would soon be
carried through the valley of Seba Biar; and the surplus produce of the
Delta would again seek for a market on the shores of the Red Sea and in
Arabia. Until these things happen, even should a canal be excavated,
whether from Cairo to Suez, or from Suez to Tineh, during some pecuniary
plethora in the city, we venture to predict that the Suez canal shares,
or Mohammedan bonds, will be as disreputable a security as honest
Jonathan's American repudiated stock, or the Greek bonds of King Otho
not countersigned by Great Britain.

We cannot close this article without alluding to two able pamphlets,
which have been recently published, recommending the formation of a
canal from Suez to Tineh, as that line might be kept always open, from
the elevation of the Red Sea above the Mediterranean.[1] The subject
has been ably treated by the French engineers in the great work on
Egypt, and Monsieur Linant has since examined the question; but the
information we possess on the effect of the currents and winds at
Tineh, is not sufficient to enable any engineer to decide on the works
which would be neces