he assumed the
important position of senior engineer.

Stas was born, bred, and reached his fourteenth year in Port Said on
the Canal; in consequence of which the engineers called him the child
of the desert. At a later period, when he was attending school, he
sometimes, during the vacation season and holidays, accompanied his
father or Mr. Rawlinson on trips, which their duty required them to
make from Port Said to Suez to inspect the work on the embankment or
the dredging of the channel of the Canal. He knew everybody--the
engineers and custom-house officials as well as the laborers, Arabs and
negroes. He bustled about and insinuated himself everywhere, appearing
where least expected; he made long excursions on the embankment, rowed
in a boat over Menzaleh, venturing at times far and wide. He crossed
over to the Arabian bank and mounting the first horse he met, or in the
absence of a horse, a camel, or even a donkey, he would imitate Farys*
[* Farys, the hero of Adam Mickiewicz's Oriental poem of the same
name.--_Translator's note_.] on the desert; in a word, as Pan Tarkowski
expressed it, "he was always popping up somewhere," and every moment
free from his studies he passed on the water.

His father did not oppose this, as he knew that rowing, horseback
riding, and continual life in the fresh air strengthened his health and
developed resourcefulness within him. In fact, Stas was taller and
stronger than most boys of his age. It was enough to glance at his eyes
to surmise that in case of any adventure he would sin more from too
much audacity than from timidity. In his fourteenth year, he was one of
the best swimmers in Port Said, which meant not a little, for the
Arabs and negroes swim like fishes. Shooting from carbines of a small
caliber, and only with cartridges, for wild ducks and Egyptian geese,
he acquired an unerring eye and steady hand. His dream was to hunt the
big animals sometime in Central Africa. He therefore eagerly listened
to the narratives of the Sudanese working on the Canal, who in their
native land had encountered big, thick-skinned, and rapacious beasts.

This also had its advantage, for at the same time he learned their
languages. It was not enough to excavate the Suez Canal; it was
necessary also to maintain it, as otherwise the sands of the deserts,
lying on both banks, would fill it up in the course of a year. The
grand work of De Lesseps demands continual labor and vigilance. So,
too, at