Mediterranean, which is blue. Since the lakes have been filled, there has been a fall of five degrees Centigrade in the mean temperature of the district round its banks. One odd fact told me is that, though the Canal literally swarms with sea fish, the fish of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea keep to their own ends of the channel. About the northern end of the Bitter Lakes the water is so extremely salt that apparently the fish decline to pass through it. The bed of the Bitter Lakes is the only portion of the Canal's course in which it has not been necessary to make a cutting. The track to be sailed over is marked out with buoys; but, in the major portion of the lake, it is held that vessels may sail wide of the course thus indicated without danger of running aground. How this may be I have no means of judging; our steamer darted to and fro about the lake without paying the smallest attention to the buoys, but then she drew only four to five feet of water. If a vessel should get aground in the lakes, the difficulty of getting her off will be greater than in the Canal, where posts are put up at short intervals along the banks, to which ropes can be fastened to warp round any ship which gets into trouble.

After the long, weary journey through sixty miles of

sand cutting, where the blazing heat of the sun is intensified by the glare and glitter of the sand, it is a great relief to sail out upon the broad, open waters of the Bitter Lakes, with the grand expanse of the desert stretching away across the shores, right up to the foot of the high, rocky hills which enclose the northern end of the Red Sea. On quitting the lakes you re-enter the Canal. The first ten miles from the mouth towards Suez appear to me the most thoroughly completed of the whole distance. There was not a dredge to be seen; the villages of wooden huts, of which there are such numbers on the banks, run up for the workmen, were completely deserted. The labourers had been paid off, and the work was held to be done. The case was very different in the last section of the Canal across the lagoons of Suez. In a distance of about a mile, I counted seventeen dredging machines in full work; the course for ships, traced by flags stuck in the middle of the Canal, is narrower than I had ever noticed it before.

The Canal widens considerably as you approach the sea. The piers at the mouth had to be carried out much farther into the water than had been expected, but at present the channel leading from the Canal into the Red Sea is as good as could be wished, and there is no indication of

any bars being formed at the mouth. After quitting the Canal, you cross the neck of the Red Sea to reach the great docks which the company have erected on the western coast. The Cairo and Alexandria railroad has been prolonged for a distance of two miles, and is carried through the sea on an embankment which lands the trains close to the docks and quays of the Canal. The line is absolutely finished, but is not yet used. As soon as it is open, passengers by the Overland route will be able to embark from the train on board the steamer in the same way as you do at Dover, and will thus avoid the troublesome transshipment of themselves and their luggage by means of boats and tenders. I cannot but fear that, with the opening of this extended line, the glory of Shepherd's Hotel will depart from it, and that the place of that world-known caravanserai will be taken by some hotel situated nearer to the landing-place.

During my progress through the Canal from Port Saïd to Suez, I had the advantage of making the expedition with two English officers who had considerable experience in engineering works, and their opinion coincided with my own as to the fact that the ultimate success of the undertaking was now assured. It has been shown by actual working that the waters of the Red Sea will flow

into the Mediterranean; that a canal can be formed which will hold water; and that there is no accumulation of sand which cannot easily be removed by dredging. Given these conclusions, it is clear that the Canal can be and will be made. Whether it is actually made now is a matter on which I cannot speak with certainty, and till the test of practical working has been applied, it is impossible to say more than that the company are acting as if they credited their own assertions.

THE OPENING OF THE SUEZ CANAL.

ON BOARD THE FAYOUM, PORT SAID, Nov. 16.

EARLY this morning I was leaning over the gunwale of the Fayoum, peering out into the labyrinth of ships with which the harbour of Port Saïd is crowded, when I espied, shooting out from under the bows of the Massourah, the Viceroy's yacht, a boat in which a man sat stooping. As the boat glided by, the solitary passenger looked up, and I recognised the face of the man by whom this port, this vast concourse of vessels, this gathering of crowned heads, this great enterprise had been called into existence-the face of Ferdinand de Lesseps. He looked very worn, tired, and haggard. Last evening I had seen him presiding at a dinner given to the representatives of the Chambers of Commerce; and all through the night he had been hard at work. For him, surely, to-day must seem wearily, drearily long. To-morrow is to be his

Waterloo; to-morrow is to decide whether the enterprise to which his life has been devoted will prove a colossal