discharge and the navigation through the
Delta. The idea was originated by a Frenchman in his service named
Linant Bey. This engineer desired to alter the course of the river and
build a weir at a point farther to the north, where the contour of land
seemed to favour the design more than that of the present locality.
Mehemet Ali thought his plans too costly, and accepted in preference
those of Mougel Bey. Unexpected difficulties were encountered from the
very beginning. Mehemet was exceedingly anxious to hurry the work, and
Mougel Bey had only made a beginning, when an exceptionally high Nile
carried away all the lime in the concrete base. Mehemet Ali did not
live to see the completion of this work. The object, could it have been
realised, was to hold up the waters of the Nile during the eight months
of the ebb, and thus keep them on a level with the soil, and at the same
time to supply Lower Egypt with an amount of water equal to that which
came down during flood-time. It was hoped to cover the very large
expenditure by the additional land which it was expected would come
under irrigation, and by doing away with the primitive _shadoofs_
and setting free for productive enterprise the numerous army of the
agricultural labourers who spent the greater part of their time in
slowly raising up buckets of water from the Nile and pouring them into
the irrigating channels.

[Illustration: 240b.jpg Harbour at Suez]

The barrage is a double bridge, or weir, the eastern part spanning the
Damietta branch of the Nile, the western part the Rosetta branch. The
appearance of the structure is so light and graceful that the spectator
finds it hard to conceive of the difficulty and the greatness of the
work itself. Architecturally, the barrage is very beautiful, with
a noble front and a grand effect, produced by a line of castellated
turrets, which mark the site of the sluice gates. There are two lofty
crenellated towers, corresponding with the towers over the gateway of
a mediaeval baronial castle. The sluices are formed of double cones of
hollow iron, in a semicircular form, worked on a radii of rods fixed to
a central axis at each side of the sluice-gate. They are slowly raised
or let down by the labour of two men, the gates being inflected as they
descend in the direction of the bed of that part of the river whose
waters are retained. The working of the barrage was never what it was
intended to be. After the year 1867 it ceased to be