he same year, a commission was signed
at Cairo by the Viceroy charging De Lesseps with the formation of a
company to be named the United Suez Canal Company, with a capital of
two hundred million francs, afterward raised to three hundred
million. From this time the affairs of the canal went on with
comparative smoothness, and by 1858 the money necessary for the work
had been pledged; one-half the loan was placed on the continent,
chiefly in Paris, the other half was taken by the Viceroy.

Actual work on the canal was begun in 1858 and such rapid progress was
made that it was completed in the autumn of 1869, and opened to the
commerce of the world with magnificent ceremonies, lasting for several
days. Religious ceremonies, in which priests of the Catholic Church,
the Greek Church, and the Moslem faith united, were followed by a
naval parade representing the European powers and the United States,
and the whole concluded with a brilliant series of fetes and
entertainments at Cairo. As the originator of the canal, De Lesseps,
was a Frenchman, and as France had been the chief promoter of the
enterprise, the place of honor at these ceremonies was naturally given
to the Empress Eugenie, who went to Cairo as the representative of the
French nation; while to De Lesseps, as naturally, was given the next
place, a position which he filled with equal dignity and modesty,
winning "golden opinions from all sorts of people."

The Suez Canal, though a vast and important undertaking, presented
almost no engineering difficulties to be overcome. At Port Said, the
Mediterranean entrance to the canal, two great piers, to serve as
breakwaters, were built of artificial stone, projecting into the
sea; the western, a distance of 6,940 feet, the eastern 6,020 feet,
and enclosing an area of 450 acres; thus providing a safe and
commodious harbor. At Suez, the Red Sea terminus of the canal, a
less formidable defense was needed; but the necessary docks and
buildings called for a considerable outlay.

From Port Said to Suez the land is almost a dead level; the few
sand-dunes that break the monotonous uniformity of the isthmus
nowhere reach a greater height than fifty or sixty feet. Along the
middle line of the isthmus there was a series of depressions; some
shallow, and others, the bottoms of which were lower than the level
of the sea. Although these depressions were at all times dry, yet
they were called "lakes," and as such figure on the maps, whe