unfortunately Great Britain would have nothing to
do with the idea, though luckily afterwards, when the canal had been
built, the Government managed to buy a large number of the shares in it
from the Egyptian Government. It took ten years to make the canal, but
it was done at last after the expenditure of quantities of money and the
loss of many lives, and even up to the opening day there were many who
scoffed and said it could never be made useful; yet now that bronze
statue stands solemnly watching, day by day, the great ships of many
nations crawling slowly into the narrow opening at the northern end.

Not only had the canal to be made but it has to be kept in working
order, for the sand silts back into the channel, and so numbers of
dredgers are constantly at work scraping out the bottom so as to keep
it deep enough for ships of large size.

At first the depth of the main channel was twenty-six feet, but now it
has been deepened to twenty-nine feet; but even that seems less than we
should expect.

At one time the storms of January and February used to drive quantities
of sand from the Mediterranean into the mouth of the canal, and even
now, though the breakwater has been lengthened to prevent it, there is
always difficulty. Steamers are only allowed to go through slowly,
otherwise the suction or pull of the water they disturb would tear down
the banks and soon make the canal useless. You have no idea what a wave
a big ship can raise in going through that narrow trough; even at a
moderate pace it would be sufficient to tear another ship from her
moorings by the bank, and then there might be a collision and disastrous
results. Ships have to pay a heavy toll for the privilege of using the
short cut, but the toll is needed to meet the working expenses and to
pay the interest on the money spent in the construction.

The ship we are in is considerably larger than the _Orontes_; she is the
_Medina_, belonging to the P. & O. Company, and was chosen to take the
King and Queen to India in 1911. She is not very cheerful looking
outside, being painted buff, with black funnels, but she is a
comfortable boat, and we are lucky in having a large cabin on the upper
deck, so that we can have our port-hole open whatever the weather may
be.

The sun is setting in a flame of salmon and scarlet as we pass the canal
offices and turn into the narrow channel. There are sidings dug out
about every five or six miles, for as only one big