the triangular continent of Africa on its way to the East; instead of making the short cut which is available for passengers by what is called the 'overland route.' If a water-way were opened across the Isthmus, the highway for the goods traffic as well for the passenger traffic of Europe, India, China, and Australia, will be along the Mediterranean and Red Seas and the Indian Ocean. And that highway will be so thronged, that the expense of travelling by it will be reduced to a minimum, and the accommodations for travellers at intermediate stations raised to a maximum of comfort.

This state of affairs-analogous to that which occurs in the intercourse of two towns where there is a round-about road for carts and carriages, and a footpath across the meadows for footpassengers only-is attended by great inconveniences. Letters relating to mercantile transactions are forwarded by the short cut; the merchandise to which they relate follows tardily by the roundabout road. The advantageous bargain concluded now may have a very different aspect when the goods come to be delivered three or four months hence. The seven-league-boot expedition of letters, and the tardy progress of goods, convert all transactions between England and India into a game of chance. This fosters that spirit of gambling speculation already too rife among us.

Again, so long as the route for passengers continues to be something different and apart from the route for merchandise, the travelling charges will be kept higher, and the accommodations for travellers less comfortable than they would otherwise be. Railways, in arranging their tariff of fares, venture to reduce the charge for passengers (in the hope of augmenting their number) when they can rely upon the returns from the goods traffic to make up deficiencies. If merchandise, as well as travellers and

letters, could be carried by what is called the overland route (of which scarcely two hundred miles are travelled by land,) the passengers' fares would admit of great reduction; and as that route would thus become the great highway, frequented by greater crowds, the accommodation of travellers could be better cared for. Travellers in carriages rarely reflect how much the amount of charges at inns depends upon the landlords having a profitable run of business among less distinguished guests.

As we remarked, when descanting on the Panama route, physical obstacles to the opening of short cuts are of much less consequence than those which originate in financial difficulties. Almost any physical obstacles may be overcome, if money can be profitably invested in the undertaking, and if money can be got for such investment.

Were we projectors of companies, and engaged in preparing an attractive prospectus, we might boldly declare that the obstacles. in the construction of a ship canal at Suez are trifling, and that the work would prove amply remunerative. But being only impartial spectators, we are obliged to confess that our information respecting the nature of the country is lamentably defective, and that what we do know does not warrant any sanguine expectation. Public attention has been industriously directed from the true line of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez. The late Mehemet Ali-péace to his ashes!-was a humbug of the first water, and he knew how to avail himself of the services of kindred spirits. He understood enough of European whims and sentiments to know what tone of language he must adopt in order to persuade Europeans he was subserving their views, while he was, in reality, promoting his own. He talked, therefore, of facilitating the intercourse between India and Europe, but he thought of making that

intercourse pass through his dominions by the longest route, and in the way which would oblige travellers to leave the greatest possible amount of money behind them; and to attain his ends he retained in his service a motley group of Europeans-the vain, the ignorant, and the jobbing, who did his spiriting after a fashion that bears conclusive testimony to his judgment and tact in selecting them.

What is really wanted for the commerce of Europe and India, is a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, by the shortest and least difficult route. What Mehemet Ali conceded was a land passage through his dominions by the longest possible route. The natural course of a ship canal is, in a straight line, from Suez to the eastern extremity of Lake Menzaleh: the line of transit conceded by Mehemet Ali is from Alexandria by Cairo to Suez, nearly three times as long. The former line passes across a low and well-watered region: the latter renders necessary an interchange of canal and river navigation, and dry land passage across the desert. The former might be passed in a day without halting the latter occupies several days, and includes necessary stoppages in the inns of Alexandria and Cairo. But Mehemet Ali and his tools directed attention from the former, and gabbled about railways and other impracticabilities, and the European public was gulled. Egypt can be reached any day by a fortnight's easy and luxurious travel, and yet the country between the eastern extremity of Lake Menzaleh and Suez is less accurately known than the Isthmus of Panama.

What we do know, with any degree of certainty about this transit, is briefly as follows:-The navigation of the Red Sea in the vicinity of Suez is rather intricate, abounding in shoals, but there is secure anchorage, and sufficient draft of water for merchant ships of considerable burden. The Mediterranean off the

eastern extremity of Lake Menzaleh is rather shallow, tolerably sheltered from the west wind, which prevails for a part of the year, but exposed to the north wind. Between Suez and the site of the ruins of Pelusium at the eastern end of the lake, the land is low and level, apparently for a part of the way between the level of both seas. The low land receives in the wet season the drainings of the high land on the east, which is a northern continuation of the mountains between the gulfs of Suez and Akaba. In addition to this, the land to the westward (northward of the Mokattam mountains which terminate near Cairo) has a twofold slope, the principal northward to the Mediterranean, the secondary eastward to the line of country we are now describing. Originally, there appears to have been a branch of the Nile entering the Mediterranean near where the ruins of Pelusium now are, and those intermediate branches between that and the Damietta branch.

The first mentioned is now closed, the other two very much obstructed; but their waters still find a way to the coast, though diminished by artificial works, and appear to be the cause of the collection of shallow water called Lake Menzaleh. Here, then, we have sixty geographical miles of a low country, with no considerable undulations, towards which the waters of Arabia Petræa flow in their season, and towards which a considerable portion of the waters of the Nile would flow if left to fall on the natural declivity of the country. There is an abundant supply of water for a ship canal. The surface of the ground is in some places covered with drift sand, but not uniformly nor even for the most part. The subsoil is hard, clayey or pebbley. The bent-grasses might be cultivated, as they have been in Holland, to give firmness to the drift sand where it occurs; and this superficial obstacle removed, the subsoil is favourable to the construction of a perma

nent water-channel. The great difficulty would be the construction of works by which access to the canal is to be obtained from the Mediterranean. Apparently they would require to be carried. far out into the sea; and apparently it would be difficult to prevent their being sanded up by the waves which the north winds drive upon the coast for a great part of the year.

These difficulties, though great, are not insuperable. The advanced state of marine architecture and engineering ought surely to be able to cope with them. By re-opening the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and throwing into it the waters which would naturally find their way into the Tanitic and Mendesian branches, a sufficient stream of water might be thrown into the Mediterranean at Pelusium to keep a passage open by its scour. We must speak with diffidence about a locality which has yet been so imperfectly surveyed; but so far as the present state of our knowledge respecting it enables us to judge, there are no serious impediments to the construction of a ship canal from Pelusium to Suez, which would be perfectly accessible and practicable for vessels of from 300 to 350 tons burden; and there is a growing impression among merchants and skippers that this class of vessels is the best for trading purposes.

But the great difficulty remains yet to be noticed; the condition of government and civil security in that country. The Isthmus is close on the borders of civilised Europe, and ample supplies of effective labourers could be procured from Malta, and the Syrian and African coasts. But so long as the country is subject to a Turkish dynasty, could the undertakers count upon fair play and sufficient protection from the local authorities? And are the jealous powers of Europe likely to combine in good faith to afford them a guarantee that they should be enabled to prosecute their enterprise in security?