e hundred dollar shares, issued at $600 a share, and bearing
interest at the rate of five dollars a share. When more money was needed
in 1869, the government agreed to renounce the interest on the shares
held by it for twenty-five years, and more bonds were issued.

By help of these subventions and loans the work was pushed onward with
great vigour. The sceptical were gradually losing their scepticism,
and all the world was awakening to see what an immense advantage to
civilisation the triumph of de Lesseps' engineering enterprise would be.

[Illustration: 263.jpg THE OPENING OF THE SUEZ CANAL]

The great Frenchman had shown consummate skill as an organiser, but
still more perhaps as an astute diplomatist, who knew how to upset
the machinations of his numerous and powerful opponents by judicious
counter-strokes of policy. By the beginning of 1869, the great labours
of the company had very nearly reached their completion. The waters,
flowing from the Mediterranean, first entered into the Bitter Lakes on
March 18, 1869. Ismail Pasha was present to watch the initial success of
the grand undertaking, and predicted that in a very short space of time
the canal would be open to the ships of all the world. The first steamer
which made the passage was one which carried M. de Lesseps on board,
and which steamed the whole length of the canal September, 1869, in an
interval of fifteen hours. This was a great triumph for the intrepid and
persevering engineer, whose enterprise had been scoffed at by many men
of the greatest European fame, and the completion of which had been
delayed by incredible obstacles arising from jealousy or want of funds.
By this time the unworthy tactics of the former Palmerston ministry of
Great Britain in opposition to a scheme of such universal helpfulness
to commerce had been succeeded by an official interest in the success
of the enterprise which grew from sentiment, in the first instance, to
a willingness later to buy up all the shares held by the Egyptian
government. M. de Lesseps gave formal notice early in September that the
canal would be opened for navigation on November 17, 1869. The khedive
made costly preparations in order that the event might become an
international celebration. Invitations were sent to all the sovereigns
of Europe. The sultan refused to be present, but the Empress Eugenie
accepted the invitation in the name of the French people. The Austrian
emperor, the Prussian crown prince