RECOLLECTIONS

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/EARS.

FERDINAND DE LESSEP:

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RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

VOL. II.

RECOLLECTIONS OF
FORTY YEARS

FERDINAND. DE LESSEPS .««>*-

TRANSLATED BY C. B. PITMAN

/.V 7 WO VOLUMES
VOL. II.

LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL
LIMITED

1887

LONDON :

PRINTED BY J. 8. VIRTUE AM) CO., LIMITED,
CITY BOAD, LONDON.

CONTENTS.

VOL. II.

CHAPTER IV.— Continued.

1'AOS

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL ... .1

>

CHAPTER V.

A QUESTION OF THE DAY ...... 155

«%>.

CHAPTER VI.

AFTER THE WAR OF 1870—1871 . .161

CHAPTER VII.
THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL AND THE CONGRESS OF 1879 . 172

CHAPTER VIII.
STEAM .......... 203

CHAPTER IX.
ALGERIA AND TUNIS. . 223

vi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

PA OK

A W> KL-KADER . 236

CHAPTER XL
ABYSSINIA 242

CHAPTER XII.
TDK ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS . . , .273

CHAPTER XIII.

TIIK FRENCH ACADEMY . . 286

RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY
YEARS.

CHAPTER IV.— Continued.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL.

Journey to the Soudan.

i.

" AS soon as an International Commission of En-
-£JL gineers had fixed the mode of making the
canal, and pointed out the preliminary works which
should be undertaken before entering upon the enter-
prise itself, the British Government showed itself hos-
tile to the project, and made overtures at Constantinople
for a change in the order of succession, representing Mo-
hammed Said as bereft of his senses. The Prince got
wind of this, and confided to me how uneasy he felt.
So, in order to escape the worrying of the English
agents, he suggested that I should go with him to the
Soudan. He was anxious to deliver that country from
the misery and oppression by which it had been
weighed down since the conquests and administration
of Mehemet Ali. During our absence the investiga-

:.- JY.-"
rare to be

... -V.- •:>•:: : :i:

-

*S-L Hy

-_, : • :

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CAXAL. 3

Ternoni, I did not even have an attack of fever. But
when, on reaching Siout, the Viceroy came to see
me, I found it impossible to rise. I told him that my
accident was of good omen for the rest of the journey,
as we had acquitted our debt to ill-luck. We had a
long and interesting conversation upon the results
anticipated from our distant excursion. He was
anxious to abolish slavery in the centre of Africa,
and prepare in Ethiopia a trade which would be
beneficial to the Suez Canal. He wished to appear
as a sovereign benefactor in the region where his
brother, Ismail Pasha, had been massacred with all
his staff.

" It was forty years since Mehemet All, after having
delivered Egypt from the oppression of the Mame-
lukes, had sent his second son Ismail to the Soudan,
keeping his eldest son Ibrahim in Egypt to commence
the formation of a regular army, with the aid of a
French officer, Seves, who, under the name of Soli-
man Pasha, became celebrated in the campaigns of
Euboea, Morea, and Syria. Prince Ismail required at
the outset of his campaign that a thousand slaves, a
thousand camels, a thousand measures of wood, a
thousand loads of hay, etc., should be brought to
his canip.

" The inhabitants were obliged to submit, but while
they brought him the tribute they were at the same
time conspiring to rid themselves of him. One day,
while he and his staff were enjoying a luxurious

4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

repast, the insurgent chiefs surrounded his camp with
a belt of faggots, to which they set fire in the middle
of the night, and the Egyptians who endeavoured to
escape were massacred by the Soudanese.

" Vengeance for this was entrusted by Mehemet
Ali to his son-in-law, the Defterdar, who committed
atrocities the very description of which makes the
blood boil. I am told that he was equally cruel to
those of his soldiers or servitors who were lacking in
discipline.

"Upon one occasion, at the request of a woman
of the country, who came to complain that an Egyptian
soldier had stolen some milk, he sent for the man
whom she accused, having first warned her that he
would have her ripped open if she had told a false-
hood. The soldier was then ripped open, and as his
stomach was found to contain traces of milk the woman
was dismissed with a largess. Upon another occasion,
as his horse was badly shod, he sent for his safe (run-
ning groom) and had the horse's shoes nailed to his
feet.

" The Defterdar scattered terror and desolation
throughout the Soudan, leaving nothing but ruins
behind him, and bringing back to Egypt a hundred
thousand slaves. It is easy to imagine how miserable
and oppressed were the populations which had re-
mained since then beneath the military authority of
the rapacious Turkish governors.

"Such is the country which Ismail's brother and

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 5

the brother-in-law of the Defterdar is about to take
me through. When he left Siout with his suite it
was arranged that I should rejoin him on the 18th
December at Korosko, between the first and second
cataract, but as my wounds were not entirely healed
he went on in advance, and arranged to meet me at
Berber, above the last cataracts of the Nile.

IT.

" Upon December 24th I was still unfit to walk, but
I got myself hoisted on to my dromedary, to cross in
six days this same desert of Korosko. We had to
guide us on our way the skeletons of the camels which
had long since been abandoned by passing caravans.
The entire bodies of the camels which had been left
behind during the passage of the Viceroy, though
quite dried up, still were in the same position as that
in which they fell beneath their burden. Birds of
prey were seen creeping out of their bodies, and jackals
were patiently waiting in the distance until the vul-
tures had done their meal to come and finish up
the remains. We halted for half a day near a well in
the middle of the desert. This point is the only one
from which, at this season of the year, the four stars
of the Southern Cross could be seen in the Southern
hemisphere, and the North Star in our hemisphere.
While waiting to observe these stars, which were not
to be visible till between two and three in the morn-
ing, I amused myself by getting the Arab chiefs to

6 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

tell some of their Eastern stories. One of these
struck me very much, because of the very delicate
sentiments which it expressed as to the superior
morality of woman. Here it is very prosaically
translated : —

" ' A moth was in love with the light. Incessantly
attracted towards it, the moth flew close up to it.
But no sooner had the tip of its wing been slightly
scorched than it flew off again, throwing itself at
the feet of the cruel one, filling the air with its
plaintive cries.

" ' In the meanwhile the light was dying out;
before throwing out its last flicker it said to its
lover : " Moth, you have made much ado about
a slight singeing of your wings ; you have re-
proached me unjustly ; I have loved you in silence ;
my flame is about to expire; I am dying. Adieu.
Fly to other loves ! " '

" Our caravan started again at an early hour, after
having had the satisfaction of contemplating in all
their splendour the Southern Cross upon the one side
and upon the other the North Star, an old friend
who had often guided me in my voyages through the
desert. Having reached the banks of the Nile at
Abu-Hamet, on January 1st, 1857, I was anxious to
get to Berber before nightfall, in order to wish a
happy new year to the Viceroy. I hurried my drome-
dary forward, and did seventy-five miles in the day.
I found the Prince alone in his tent, crying bitterly ^

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 7

I asked him what was the matter, and he said that his
generals had just put the same question to him. ' I
told them,' he went on to say, ' that the music had
affected my nerves ; but I will confide to you that I
am weeping over this unfortunate country, which my
family has made so wretched ; and when I think that
there is no remedy for all this it afflicts me sorely.'
I endeavoured to console him by pointing out to him
that, on the contrary, there were remedies which he,
with his spirit of justice, would be able to discover
and apply.

" The next day we started for Shendy, the very
place where his brother Ismail had been burnt to
death. The Viceroy had appointed this as the place
where all who had presented petitions to him in the
course of his journey were to meet ; and upwards of
one hundred and fifty thousand natives were assembled
there. In the presence of this vast multitude the
prince was informed that, despite his formal injunc-
tions, an aged Turkish chief had detained a female
slave chained up in a cave. He gave orders for master
and slave to be brought before him, had the chains
transferred from the one to the other, and thus excited
extraordinary enthusiasm. Carried away by the
popular applause, he told the people to remove the
cannon from the citadel and cast them into the
Nile ; but on my whispering to him that perhaps
this was trusting them too far, he said to me, * The
guns are too old; they were placed there in my

8 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

father's time, and are incapable of firing a single
shot.7

" The Viceroy then declared that he intended to
send all the Turkish functionaries back to Egypt;
that he should leave them to govern themselves ; and
that he intended to establish among them munici-
palities, which had from the beginning of the world
been the principal element of all organised society.

" I was instructed to remain a few days at Shendy
to assist his Highness' s Ministers in the creation of
the municipalities, which were formed by election
from among the heads of families.

" Boats were got ready to take us up to Khartoum,
where we arrived on the evening of January 10th. The
name Khartoum signifies the two branches of the ele-
phant's trunk, because the town is situated between
two tusks, as it were— the Blue and the "White Nile.
I am met on arrival by the Viceroy, who is waiting
for me at the entrance to the audience chamber in the
palace of the Governor-General of the Soudan. He
tells me that he had been greeted, as mentioned by
me in a previous chapter, on his arrival by a band
of music such as he had never heard before, the
wind instruments in which, dating from the time of
Mehemet Ali, had been mended with soap plaster
borrowed from the regimental chemist.

" I embarked upon my voyage up the White Nile
with Arakel Bey, a very amiable and intelligent
young man, who had been brought up in Erance at the

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. g

College de Sorreze,* and who was very ambitious to be
of service to his country. As we went along the banks
of the Blue Nile in order to enter the White Nile,
we saw long files of dromedaries coming in from all
directions, mounted by men of every shade of colour,
from chocolate to ebony black, who had hurried
to Khartoum from the most remote districts to
thank the great prince whose fame had traversed
the desert, and who came to bring freedom to the
oppressed.

" In the first bark there were, in addition to Arakel
Bey and myself, M. Heuglein, Austrian Consul at
Khartoum, and a very learned explorer and naturalist,
and Senhor Popotani, Consul-General of Portugal in
Egypt, for whom the Viceroy had a great liking.
In the second bark were some of our services, the
provisions, and the cooking apparatus. "We were
becalmed all night at the junction of the two streams.
The next morning a brisk wind took us up to about
the 15th degree, to the south of Mount Oueli. The
White Nile is at this point two or three times as
broad as the river is in Egypt or Nubia. Its banks
are not steep — that is to say, the river is not embedded
between two high banks — and the ground covered
with timber slopes gradually down to the edge of the
stream. M. Heuglein tells us that the river, with its
numerous islands, was much the same up to the fourth

::: Note of the Translator. — This was the college founded by Pere
Lacordaire.

VOL. II. C

io RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

degree, which is at present the extreme limit known.
We encountered flocks of waterfowl — the sacred
ibises, which are no longer to be seen in Egypt, royal
cranes, grey cranes, Nile geese, and pelicans. At
about two o'clock, the wind having dropped, we let
our barks drop down stream, and while they were
running down, we landed on the right bank, about
two leagues to the south of Mount Oueli. "We made
for the direction of the mountain, following some very
densely-wooded paths, and Arakel Bey and myself
went up the mountain while the two others were
shooting game. From this height and in so clear
an atmosphere we saw, for a distance of ten or
twelve leagues all round us, plains covered with
forests, and natural vegetation which could, with
the facilities for irrigation, be made of enormous
value.

" Upon coming down from the mountain, we all
assembled at an encampment of the Bindja tribe. The
sheik and his family received us very cordially, and
the most elegant of the cocoa-nut mattings were taken
down from the walls and placed at our feet. We were
treated as personages belonging to the suite of the
Viceroy, whose deeds of benevolence are already
known throughout the country, and who is called the
1 Father of the Unhappy.' The women — who, despite
their colour of Florentine bronze, are very handsome
—bring us milk and fruit. Old men, surrounded by
their families, sing the praises of the Effendinah ( our

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. n

master), and pray aloud for him, prostrating them-
selves on the ground, and exclaiming that God had
sent him to deliver them from their misery.

" At eight o'clock the barks came to fetch us at the
place where they saw the fires alight. While we
were having supper, as I happened to praise the taste
of the excellent Bindja milk, M. Heuglein made me
feel rather uncomfortable by telling me that upon
the Upper Nile the tribes which have no salt mix
the cows' urine with milk. He added, however, that
this custom only commenced with the tribes about a
hundred leagues higher up the river."

in.

" January 18, 1857.

" Upon the morning of the 16th we were still only
ten leagues from Khartoum. There was a very slow
current and no wind, so the boats went slowly up
stream. In the afternoon we landed and walked
through some woods and some bean fields in flower,
which emitted an odour which was very pleasant at
first, but soon became too strong. The geese, cranes,
and herons swept down upon the banks of the river,
and looked in the distance like flocks of sheep, but
they would not let us get within gun-shot of them.
I was walking on ahead, accompanied only by the
boatman, when, as we approached a small creek, we
noticed two sharp points floating on the surface of the
water and making for land. We saw, as we got

nearer, that these were the muzzles of two crocodiles

c2

12 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

which were swimming about on the look-out for some
prey. When about fifteen paces off I fired at one
with a rifle, but the bullet sounded on the animal as
on a piece of wood, and the beast did not move. My
boatman told me that if any woman or child, or even
a man alone, came to fetch water just then, he or she
would incur a great risk of being seized. He added
that when a crocodile attacks it begins by taking
the victim under its claws and squeezing it tightly,
dragging the body off to devour it upon some
neighbouring island.

" He went on to tell me that, being one day in the
water and swimming about with his brother, one of
their comrades who was on shore called out to them
to be careful, as he had just seen a crocodile. The
two swimmers at once made for shore, but their com-
rade incautiously had advanced close to the edge of
the water, and the crocodile, making a prodigious
bound, seized him by the left arm, plunged into the
stream and came up on the other side, where my boat-
man distinctly saw him devour the body of his unfor-
tunate comrade. He also showed me a wound which
a crocodile had made in his leg. He once met one
which had gone ashore and was waddling back to the
Nile. He and his companion tried to stop it, but the
crocodile came at him, and with its open jaw inflicted
a bite which threw him to the ground. Fortunately,
he had the time to seize the dagger which the natives
wear in the form of a bracelet, and with this he sue-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 13

ceeded in wounding the crocodile in the vulnerable
part of the neck, which has no scales, whereupon the
animal made at once for the Nile. He told me that
there was another way to make the crocodile let go of
you if he seized you in the water, and that was to
push your fingers into his eyes, if your position
allowed you to do so.*

" We re-embark and continue our journey down
the river, remaking several traces of the hippopota-
mus. It is evident that we are in the region frequented
by these amphibious creatures, and we soon see in
mid stream a sort of floating island, blackish in colour,
and with its surface shining in the sun. This was the
back of an enormous hippopotamus. We soon saw
another one not so large. When we got quite close
to the larger one, the sailors shouted in a peculiar
manner, and we saw the hippopotamus rapidly plunge
to the bottom, and then come up again to the surface
and expose all the upper part of his body and the
hind legs. We were told that this was a family party,
and that the mother, believing her young to be in
danger from the boats, had sprung out of the water
in this way to see what her enemies were and, if
necessary, defend herself.

u This reminded me of a story which had been told
me, upon my arrival at Khartoum, by Father Knoble-

* Note of the Translator. — This must be almost as effective a
mode of self-preservation as putting salt upon birds' tails is of
catching them.

i4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

cher, superior of the Catholic Mission upon the White
Nile. On one of his voyages the boat in which he was
travelling having separated the mother from her young,
she jumped furiously out of the water, and as Father
Knoblecher's cook happened to be leaning over the
side of the boat, he was struck by the enormous beast
as she fell back and dragged him with her into the
stream.

" "We reached Khartoum at nine in the evening of
the 17th, and the next day the Viceroy informed me
that he had dictated during my absence his ordinances
for the administration of the Soudan. These curious
documents remind one at once of the ancient ordi-
nances of the French kings, and the patriarchal
traditions of the Bible. A few fragments of them
are worth quoting : —

" l Order of His Highness the Viceroy to the new Governors
of the five provinces of the Soudan: Sennaar, Kor-
dofan, Ta/ca, Berber, and Dongola.
(Translated from the Arab.)

" KHAKTOUM, January 26, 1857.

" ' You have heard what my heart yearns for, and
how I desire the prosperity of the land and the
welfare of the population. You know also how I
have sought to form a right understanding of what-
ever is calculated to develop their fortune, to spare
them suffering and place them beyond the reach of
persecution, so that they may reach the height of

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 15

prosperity by the removal of injustice and of the abuse
of power.

" ' When I reached the Soudan provinces and saw
the misery in which they were plunged, owing to the
excessive sums levied upon the lands, I decided, moved
by the spirit of justice, that all this system should be
abandoned, and I desire that henceforth the taxes
shall be distributed according to the means of the in-
habitants, so that all fears may be calmed, that the
land may prosper, and that there may be no further
cause for complaint or exasperation.

" ' When I reached Berber I asked the sheiks and
inhabitants who came out to meet me what could
insure their tranquillity, and how much they could
afford to pay. They replied by asking that each
sakie should pay an import of 250 piastres ; but as my
love for my people makes me desirous of giving them
the utmost possible prosperity, and as I am anxious
to restore confidence to those who have expatriated
themselves and induce them to return, I have decided
that they shall pay only 200 piastres for each sakie.
I then arrived at Khartoum to meet the other sheiks
and notable persons, and if these latter had arrived
promptly, they would have experienced, by the effect
of my presence among them, the marks of a generosity
which they had never yet experienced. But as I have
made you Mudir of this province, you must above all
things concern yourself with the welfare of the popu-
lations, with all that can ameliorate their position and

1 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

tranquillise their minds ; and you are to act in regard
to them with all possible solicitude.

" l You will collect the taxes at the time of the most
profitable crops — that is to say, that every year you
Avill call together an assembly during the three months
when there is no labour to be done in the fields. At
this meeting you will divide the payment of the taxes
into monthly sums, so arranged that they will not be
burdensome to the inhabitants or leave arrears behind.
This assembly is to be composed of from twelve to
twenty-four notables of the province, according as you
shall deem best for the general good. In your posi-
tion as president of this assembly it will be your duty
to see as to the division of the taxes, the best means
for increasing the general welfare and tranquillity, so
as to render the state of the towns and villages very
stable. Your decisions are to be communicated to me
from time to time

"' Whatever the Government may require in the
way of food, camels, or labour is always to be paid for
at the rate of two per cent, over what the inhabitants
pay for the same things ; and even if it should happen
that the value and the hire of the articles increased,
the Government is always to pay the extra two per
cent. ; and in order to guard against the sheiks, with
the view of showing that they are watching over the
interests of the Government, not declaring the truth
for the price and hire of labour, you shall not take
anything except with the free consent of the owners,

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 17

so that in this way prosperity may increase, and that
others, seeing the price paid by the Government, may
be led themselves to pay more, which is the way to
increase the welfare of the country. You will take
no man or camels for corvees (forced labour) ; you will
advise the inhabitants to sow wheat, indigo, cotton,
and sesamum. You will do all that is necessary to
see that the cottons are properly pressed and the indigo
well made so as to facilitate their export and increase
their value. You will also encourage the inhabitants
to extract sesamum oil, for that is in their interests.
There arc also many forests which contain an immense
quantity of wood suitable, some for building, some for
boat-making, some for firewood. It would be easy to
send this timber down to Egypt on a raft when the
Nile rises. You must let the inhabitants understand
this and encourage them to do it, for most of them
have little to do, and this would be a fresh source of

profit for them

" ' With regard to the mountains which are taxed, as
their inhabitants live like savages, and as it is necessary
to bring them to a state of humanity, so that they may
no longer be inclined to revolt, I have decided to forego
two-thirds of their taxes. You will explain to them
that they are not slaves, but free. These persons are
in the habit of sowing some of the land on the slope of
the mountains. You must encourage them and make
them understand the advantages of life in towns;
exhort them to increase their cultivation, and en-

i8 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

deavour to convince and attract them. Explain well
to them that if they heartily devote themselves to
agriculture I will dispense from payment of the tax
which I now reduce, and thus they will only have to
pay the tax of the lands which they actually cultivate,
even if this tax should be less than what they pay for
their mountains; and you will treat them in this
manner for their tranquillity, and so as to draw them
into the path of civilisation. If ev«n, in your con-
versation with them to explain this and to prevail
upon them to do it, they ask you to remove this tax,
provided that they promise to devote themselves to
agriculture, paying only the land tax, you will consent
and will refer the matter to me, so that I may act
with them according to their desires, with the sole
object of inspiring them with the love of comfort of
life in the towns, and to safeguard them from the
vicissitudes to which they are exposed.

"'When I arrived at Berber and at Shendy, I
appointed the sheiks and notables according to the
wishes of the inhabitants and at their choice. The
sheiks of some villages did not come. You will
arrange things in the same way for the province of
Dongola, and complete them also for the villages in
the provinces of Berber and Gaulein, where they have
not been done. You will select as sheiks and muluks
those who have been chosen by the inhabitants, and
you will give them your wise counsels, so that they
may behave properly and avoid, thanks to your care,

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 19

anything which might alienate the inhabitants. Ex-
amine all affairs submitted to you ; do justice to all
men without partiality and in all equity. If any man
deserves imprisonment for any misdeed, you will have
the matter tried at once, so that the culprit may not
remain long in prison ; for even when it is necessary
to punish a man for a bad action, so that he may not
again fall into evil, my pity and clemency would not
have him remain in prison longer than is absolutely
necessary. Although, considering all that I have just
done in favour of the inhabitants of this country, either
by diminution of the taxes and the abolition of forced
labour, or by preventing injustice and oppression, it
does not seem necessary to maintain troops there, inas-
much as the inhabitants will necessarily be compelled,
for the preservation of their properties, to defend
themselves against attack, I have nevertheless quar-
tered a sufficient number of regiments in the different
localities. Be on your guard, therefore, to repel
whomsoever attacks you, and if it is necessary that
the provinces should come to one another's help, let
this be done so that no harm may befall any of those
under your charge.

" ' It is always a matter of urgent necessity, and it is
also my desire, that you should keep me constantly
informed of the condition of the country, and of any-
thing which occurs in it. You must therefore organize
a postal service for the Ghezire (Sennaar), Kordofan,
and Taka, from Ghezire to Abu-Khama. At each

20 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

interval of ten hours' march by camel, or about five
hours' by dromedary, you will establish stations for
two dromedaries, the riders of which will hand on
the despatches from one to the other. You will get
ready sheds in which they can be kept, and you will
provide means for feeding the messengers as well as
their dromedaries. You will establish three stations
between Abu-Khama and Korosko — the first at Abu-
Khama, the second at Marat, and the third atKorosko,
so as to facilitate the arrival of your despatches. You
will also provide ten dromedaries for the mudir's
service.

" ' If in the event of any one of you being compelled
to assume the offensive, and of his enemies being so
numerous that he requires help from Cairo, send
me word at once, and I will send him the where-
withal to make their hearts faint within them, to
destroy and to disperse them ; and I will myself come
and punish those who have created disturbance and
done evil.

" 'Be well assured that the necessary preparations
will always be ready at Cairo, and that I will make
an example of those whom I find to be guilty. Be
convinced also that if I learn that the inhabitants
have been oppressed by you or by the sheiks, not one
of you will be spared punishment. Lay this well
to heart and act accordingly, for such is my order
and will.' "

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 21

Second Order of His Highness.

k£ l In the order which I gave to you for the regula-
tion of the tax, and for the carrying out of other
instructions, it is stated that the tax is fixed upon this
basis since the solar year 1272 (Zilkedje 1273), that
the sum which the inhabitants may have paid since
the beginning of the year till now was to be deducted
from this year's tax, and that, out of my love for my
people, you were not to claim from the inhabitants the
arrears due up to the end of the year 1271.

" ' But as all this was not very clearly explained,
and as the inhabitants of these countries are unin-
structed, I fear that they may think that the arrears
are still due from them ; so I issue this order to set
their minds entirely at rest, that their joy and happi-
ness may be full, and I explain to them more clearly
my wishes.

" * The sums which have been collected since the
beginning of 1272 until now will be deducted from
the tax of the current year, after the accounts of the
serafs (surveyors of taxes) have been closely verified.

" * With regard to those who are creditors up to the
end of 1271, for the excess which they have paid on
the tax which they owed, although in equity this sur-
plus should be made good by the arrears, yet in my
justice I do order that my subjects lose nothing of
what is due to them, and therefore you will com-
pensate out of the tax] of the current year all those

22 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

who are found to be creditors for such sums duly
proved.

" < It is also necessary to be well acquainted with
the limits of each village, and to compel the sheiks
and notables to respect these limits and to appoint
proper guardians, who will be responsible for any
murder or theft committed within the boundaries of
their village, and who will be bound to produce the
murderer or thief, failing which they will be held
personally responsible. This is done with a view to
secure the safety of the road, and to prevent them
shifting the responsibility from one to the other,
which would render the process of trial a very long
one, and make it very difficult to discover the truth.

" * You will therefore take the necessary steps to
fix the boundaries of each village ; you will make the
sheiks understand what a serious responsibility rests
upon them

" i Up till now the thieves and murderers sentenced
to penal servitude for life have been sent to the galleys
in the Soudan ; if, instead of that, they had been re-
moved to galleys far away from their families and
villages, the knowledge of this would probably have
prevented them from committing the crime. I have
consequently decided that those who are condemned
to penal servitude for life shall be sent to the galleys
in Egypt to undergo their punishment, and that those
who are condemned to a like penalty in Egypt shall
be sent to the Soudan.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 23

" i The accounts were formerly submitted to the
Governor-General. But now that each province is
independent you will send your accounts every three
months to Cairo.

" 'You will communicate the contents of this'order
to all the sheiks and notables ; you will make them well
acquainted with it, so that they may conform to it.

" < Such is my will.' "

" Arakel Bey had begged me to ask the Viceroy to
let him remain as Governor- General of the Soudan,
so I took this opportunity of pointing out to him that
it was no use to have good laws unless they were
administered by suitable persons, and recommended
Arakel Bey to him. The only objection he raised was
that he feared the climate of the Soudan might be fatal
to him, and he urged me to point this out to him, and to
say that during the last few days low fever had killed
half of the seventy Albanians who formed his escort.

" Despite this, Arakel Bey told me that he was
anxious to have the honour of carrying out the noble
ordinances of the Viceroy, and that it was the height
of his ambition to be entrusted with this important
mission. We were encamped near Khartoum, and
upon my communicating Arakel Bey's decision to him,
the Viceroy, who was always very prompt in his
actions, at once sent for his ministers and generals,
and addressed them as follows : — ' You are aware that
we are about to quit this terrible country, the climate

24 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

of which, has already cost us so many valuable lives.
You are all men who have been enriched by my pre-
decessors and by myself; you have palaces at Cairo;
you have families and every comfort ; there is not
one of you who would have been foolish enough
to ask me to leave him here as governor of a country
which has been ruined. Well, the only one who has
aspired to this post is a Christian, Arakel Bey; he
really wants a straight waistcoat.' Then one of his
ministers, Hassan Pasha, acting as buffoon of the Court,
seized Arakel and went through the pretence of tying
him up to the pole of the tent. "When this scene was
at an end the Viceroy made a sign and every one
withdrew, leaving us alone.

"'Well,' he said, speaking in excellent French,
* le tour estjoue' (the trick is played). £ If I had been
compelled to appoint a personage in my train to act as
deputy for me in this important Government, with all
the external signs of my authority, my own tent, my
horses, my carriages, my palace, and all my absolute
powers, at a distance of six hundred leagues from my
capital, it would have been impossible for me to fulfil
my promise, on account of Arakel's religion, as there
is no precedent in the whole Ottoman Empire of a
Christian having occupied a like position. Now you
can go and tell Arakel that his request is granted, and
that he can come and see me.'

" January 19. — I go to see M. Heuglein, whose
geographical information about the interior of Africa is

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 25

full of interest, and I meet there M. de Malzac, who
had arrived the day before from the Upper Nile. He
had been secretary to Count de Bayneval, French
Ambassador in Borne, and he had abandoned diplo-
macy for the adventurous and perilous life of an ele-
phant hunter in the Djours' country, between the 6th
and 7th degree, ten days march inland, to the west of
the "White Nile. His cargo of ivory will bring him
in about £1,600.

IV.

"Upon the 20th of January the Viceroy orders
preparations to be made for a start, and we are to
commence the journey in a week, traversing the vast
desert of Bayuda, on the left bank of the Nile, as far
as Dongola. This desert is much less inhospitable
than that of Korosko, and we are to follow at the foot
of the lofty mountain chain a series of valleys which
are well cultivated, watered, and inhabited. It seems
indeed as if this vast tract, described as a ' great
desert,' upon the map, is not a desert at all.

" In the meanwhile we propose to make an excur-
sion of two or three days up the Blue Nile, five or
six leagues above Khartoum, to visit the ruins of
Sheba, an ancient city of Ethiopia, perhaps the capital
of the famous queen whom Solomon wished to have as
his 301st wife.

" I advise the Yiceroy to send for horsemen from a
tribe in the province which, as I had been told, had
armour and equipments for their horses similar to that

VOL. II. D

26 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

used by the French crusaders. Carriers were sent
out on dromedaries and soon returned, bringing with
them a dozen horsemen arrayed in coats of mail and
helmets, carrying long swords, the hilts of which
were in the shape of a cross, and riding horses richly
caparisoned from the head to the tail with very gaudy
cloth on a thick backing of cotton. They performed
some very clever feats of arms in our presence.

" Towards the end of January the Viceroy started
in advance of my caravan, as it was desirable not to
have too many people together in case the supply of
water at the wells should run short; but we arranged
to meet from time to time at certain halting-places
fixed before starting."

To Madame Delamalle.
(Continuation of the Diary.)

" CAIRO, March 6, 1857.

"I have at last arrived here safe and sound after
my long journey, having done the distance from Khar-
toum to the second cataract, which is about nine
hundred miles, in twenty-two days on an excellent
dromedary, which, however, was so tired during the
last week that he made a great many tumbles, and
tried my gymnastic abilities very highly. A steamer
was waiting for me at Ouade- el- Alpha * (the second
cataract), and the reason why I am a week behind the
Viceroy is that I was obliged to stop awhile in Dongola

* Note of the Translator. — Wadi-Halfa, as it is better known to
English readers since the Soudan campaign.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 27

and attend the doctor whom he had told off for me.
The doctor was very ill with low fever, and despite
my want of experience in medicine, I succeeded in
bleeding him and bringing him round.

" You are aware that, instead of returning by
Korosko, upon the right bank of the Nile, we changed
our itinerary so as to avoid the windings of the stream
and five of its cataracts, and that we took the other
route on the left bank of the river, through the so-
called desert of Bayuda. I did not meet with a single
accident or adventure in the course of this journey
through a land occupied by supposed barbarian
populations. Upon quitting the banks of the Nile
and making for the country to the south-west of
Khartoum, we traversed the tribe of the Hassanieh,
the women of which, who are very handsome, are
allowed complete liberty one day out of four.

" My caravan was always well supplied with pro-
visions, while that of the Viceroy, which preceded
mine, often ran short. The Prince asked me once
how this was, and I answered him as follows : ' This
is not at all to be wondered at. Your Government
has so maltreated this country that, after you have
passed through, I have to be very patient before I can
overcome the mistrust of the inhabitants. Seated alone
in front of an abandoned hut, and, letting my caravan
get well out of sight, I have to wait an hour, or
perhaps two, before the children will come near me.
Children are always sent on in advance to reconnoitre.

D2

28 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

If they hesitate to approach me, I throw them some
small coins, some shells, or glass trinkets. They are
sure then to go and tell their mothers what they have
seen, and then the women come up, not as a rule the
young ones. They surround me and ask me why I
have made presents to the children, and I reply that
I am a man of ease travelling for my pleasure, and
for the good of the country in which I am sojourning.
Then they all ask me at once if there is anything that
you want. I tell them that, on the contrary, if they
require provisions I have plenty at my encampment,
which is an hour's march, and to which I invite them
to come. It is when one has the appearance of requir-
ing nothing that everybody is ready to furnish you
with what you really do want. As soon as the old
women had gone to fetch me the provisions, the young
women and girls arrived, full of curiosity, very pretty
some of them with their complexions like Florentine
bronze, and they were soon followed by the young
men. In short, a whole crowd of them came to our
tents with sheep, goats, dates, and milk, and all that
we could require. Curiously enough, they would
never take any money, and yet these very same
people would perhaps have killed me if I had come
to them armed.'

" Another day the Viceroy said to me : ' You are
very lucky, it seems. I had a fine service of china,
but it is broken to bits.' I told him that if his china
had been entrusted to men who were better looked

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 29

after, it would not have happened. Soon after this
he pretended that the camel which carried mine was
tired out, and when the frisky one which he had put
in its place kicked up and broke the handsome ser-
vice, a gift of his own, he was delighted. Fortunately,
I had in reserve what I call my silver service, made
of tin and used by me while surveying for the canal,
even when princes do me the honour of accepting my
hospitality. To-morrow I am going to rejoin the
Viceroy at one of his residences upon the Damietta
branch of the Nile.

" It will be as well to give here the memoir which
was read at the meeting of the Academic des Sciences
in Paris on April 27th, 1857, by M. Elle de Beau-
mont, and which embodied my observations relating
to the Soudan. These observations, which I put in
the form of a letter, were as follows : —

" £ Monsieur Le Secretaire Perpetuel,

"' Having received during my stay in Khartoum
last January the questions and instructions of the
Academic des Sciences, drawn up for the use of tra-
vellers seeking the sources of the White Nile, I com-
municated them to the Europeans, who were staying
in or passing through Khartoum, and handed a copy
to Arakel Bey, the Governor-General of the Sennaar
provinces, who, by his education, fine feelings, and real
worth, will not fail to exercise over these still
barbarous countries a most salutary influence. I

30 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

requested this high functionary of the Viceroy to estab-
lish at his residence in the capital of the Soudan, and
in accordance with the questions sketched out by the
Academic des Sciences, a standing inquiry among all
travellers, tourists, savants, traders, and pilgrims,
whether native or European.

" t Circumstances favoured my commencing an inquiry
of this kind myself, and I had several opportunities
during my three weeks stay at Khartoum to question,
either together or independently, MM. de Malzac,
Thibaut, and Yayssieres, French travellers ; another
of our compatriots, Dr. Peney, who has been living
for the last ten years in the Sennaar ; M. Heuglein, the
Austrian consul, and a very learned geographer and
naturalist; and Don Ignacio Knoblecher, the worthy
chief of the Apostolic Mission in Eastern Africa.

" ' I am very pleased to lay before the Academy the
results of my investigations, and trust that they may
be deemed of interest.

" l Since the expedition of M. d'Arnaud, which did
not get beyond 4° 42' 42", no one has been further up
the river than Don Ignacio Knoblecher, Don Angelo
Vinco and Don Bartholomeo Mosgan. These hardy
missionaries navigated for a period of a fortnight
beyond the point reached by M. d'Arnaud, that is up
to the third degree. They formed at Gondokoro, in
the land of the Barrys, in 4° 35', latitude north, and
28° 47', longitude east (M.P.), an establishment which
is still flourishing despite the death of its first founder,

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 31

Don Angelo Vinco, and which is now almost as
important as the mother house at Khartoum.

u ' The mission has lost within the last eight years
twelve of its members out of thirty-six. It is at Khar-
toum that the climate is the most fatal to foreigners,
owing to the prevalence of low fever. In 1839
Mehemet AH lost in a week thirteen of the sixty
persons who accompanied him, and the Viceroy the
other day lost half of his escort of seventy Albanians
who were encamped outside the town. They all
died in the space of three days, during which the sun
had been very hot.

" ' The outskirts of Khartoum need being drained,
as the stagnant water which accumulates in the low
ground after rain is the chief cause of mischief to
Europeans. The city, founded by Mehemet Ali forty
years ago, has now between 35,000 and 40,000 inha-
bitants. It is the centre of an important trade, and
the very wise arrangements which the Viceroy has
just made will certainly add to its salubrity and
prosperity.

" 'M. Heuglein has ascertained it to be 1,060 feet
(French) above the level of the sea, and its latitude
you know. Khartoum, in Arabic, means elephant's
trunk, and the name is derived from the comparison
of the two branches of the Nile which meet here
being like the two cartilages or snouts at the end of
an elephant's trunk. The waters of the two rivers
do not mix directly after their junction, those on the

32 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

eastern side being for some distance clear and blue,
while those to the west are muddy and of a whitish
hue.

" { In going up the White Nile from Khartoum to
the 10th degree the bed of the river is very broad
and slopes but very little, the result being that its
current is very slow, little more than half a mile an
hour, while with a north wind there is scarcely any.
The banks are not at all steep, and are formed by a
narrow sort of shore which divides the river from
the immense plains which are in many cases below
its level. The land is very well cultivated near the
river, but beyond it is covered with wild plants,
woods, and bush. At the 14th degree begins the
Archipelago of the Chulucks, up to within a day's
journey of the mouth of the Saubat, an affluent
running from the east between the 10th and 9th
degrees.

" ' From the 10th to the 6th degree the White Nile
flows through marshes where travellers are much
plagued by insects. M. de Malzac, who last year
killed seventeen elephants with his own gun, has
formed an establishment in the land of the Djours,
between the 6th and ^9th degrees, a hundred leagues
to the west of the Mle. From that point he has
put himself in communication with several other
tribes, all of which speak different languages. He
already employs five native interpreters to conduct
his exchanges of glass and other trinkets for ivory,

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 33

and as his relations are extending every year, he
told me that he should soon require at least five
fresh interpreters. To illustrate the necessity of this,
he told me that an elephant is called altou by the
Kilches, kedde by the Djours, and so on. Yet all
these tribes have one word for the serpent, and that
is python, the coincidence with the Greek being
somewhat singular.

" c A short time ago five hundred blacks came with
M. de Malzac from his station to the banks of the
Kile, carrying on their backs a cargo of elephant
tusks which lie was bringing down to Khartoum.
This journey lasted a week, and the men passed over
marshy land which beasts of burden could not have
traversed. M. de Malzac had informed his men
before he engaged them that as his stock of glass and
trinkets was exhausted he could only pay them on
his return. But this did not prevent them coming
down to the river with their heavy load, and from
returning home full of confidence in his promise.

"'A fact like this shows that the inhabitants of
these countries are not by nature hostile to stran-
gers. Most of the tragedies which have recently
occurred are due to the greediness and, in some cases,
to the actual cruelty of certain traders.

" 'The Ntibor, called in the Soudan the "Bahr-el-
Gazal (Stream of Gazelles), is not, according to MM.
Malzac and Veyssieres, the principal part of the Nile,
but only one of its affluents, and perhaps the most

34 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

important. Among the Dinkas and the Chulucks
the "White Nile is called Kyr, and among the Barrys
the Churifiry. Father Knoblecher states that when
going up the river beyond Gondokoro he noticed
upon the left bank at 4° 9' a granite mountain
500 feet high, which the natives call Logouai. While
he was going up this mountain he felt a sharp shock
of earthquake. The negroes who accompanied him,
throwing themselves upon their faces to the ground,
were very much terrified, and exclaimed that the
spirits of the dead were coming back Father
Knoblecher having asked them what they meant by
these spirits, they told him that there had formerly
been a great battle in the neighbourhood, that the
dead had been buried at the foot of the mountain,
and that ever since their souls made occasional efforts
to escape. The missionary took the opportunity,
while combating their prejudices, to explain to them
that the notions of the immortality of the soul, which
they asserted were unknown to them, in reality
came natural to them, and that it would never occur
to them that the spirit of an ox or an ass could
survive.

" i A few lights to the south of Mount Logouat, on
the right bank of the river, is a stream which is
navigable for three days' journey, and which appears
to have its source at the foot of a lofty mountain
called Lologouchi. Further on, eight leagues from
Logouat, commence the rapids, which are studded

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 35

with islets and which, extend for a hundred leagues,
over which distance the river is not navigable.
Father Knoblecher managed to pass through the first
islets, but he was obliged to go on foot to a rock
which is a hundred feet high, and from this elevated
point he traced the Nile, as far as the eye could
reach, flowing southward between two tall moun-
tains called Merek-Rego and Merek- Wigo. It would
appear from what is related by him and all other
travellers, that beyond the rapids the river again be-
comes navigable as far as the 4th or 5th degree of south
latitude, and that there it forms a bend towards the
east, afterwards coming back towards the north, and
having its source between the 1st and 2nd degree of
latitude south, at the foot of a large chain of moun-
tains called by the Somalis Kcenia, the tablelands
of which nearest to the sources are called by the
natives Kali-Mandjaro, or White Mountain. These,
then, would be the silver-capped mountains, or the
mountains capped with eternal snow, described by
the Monbaz Protestant missionaries, as well as by
the English navigator Short, who came from Zan-
zibar.

" < Along the course of the White Nile, at the point
where the rapids are met with, the two banks of the
river are so close that the natives say they can shake
hands across them. The Catholic missionaries have
remarked that at several points a large tree is thrown
across the river by way of a bridge.

36 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

" l The rising of the river begins in February or March.
Sometimes the river will rise and fall again within the
twenty-four hours, and this was what happened to
Father Knoblecher when he was passing between the
islets of the first rapids. He was afraid on one occasion
that he should not be able to get back to Gondokoro,
as his boat had stranded ; but the next day the water
rose and floated it, this movement of ebb and flow
occurring several times in succession. The Bairys,
amid whom is situated the Catholic establishment of
Gondokoro, belong to a numerous and powerful tribe,
which is descended from a chief named Zangara,
and from his sons, Karchiouk, Bepo, Pilza, "Wany,
Watavy, and Manabour. They were formerly in
regular communication with a very distant tribe in-
habiting the south-east, but the caravan which used
to come to them every year has not been seen any-
thing of for several seasons, owing to the hostile
attitude of the intermediate tribes.

" ' ETHNOLOGY.

" i The population is very dense all along the course
of the White Nile wherever the land is productive.
The arms used are lances, darts, large double-edged
swords, ebony clubs, and tridents with three sharp
blades, which the natives project with the hand. I
send with this one of these tridents for the Academy's
inspection, and two spades manufactured by the
Djours out of the iron of the country.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 37

" < None of the tribes are able to write. They can
count, and their system of numerals is similar to ours ;
and I append a tablet of the numerals, as supplied me
by M. de Malzac, in use among the Kidgs, the A jars,
the Ocools, the Dinkas, &c.

" i The dwellers along the White Nile live principally
upon cow's milk, doura grain, sweet sorghhum, rice,
beans, earth-nuts, and sweet potatoes. The married
women are partially clothed in sheep-skins, but the
men as a rule go quite naked. The Djours, however,
enclose their generative organs in a panther-skin bag,
while the women wear a belt of leaves round their loins.

" The habitations in the rainy regions are round
huts with conical roofs ; in the regions where no rain
falls they are square, and have flat roofs. The Barrys
invoke a divinity whom they call the great rain
(Dendit). At a time of drought they sacrifice a white
ox in order to obtain rain, and when there is too
much rain they sacrifice a black ox to obtain sun-
shine. This sacrifice is, moreover, in very general
usage among the tribes of the White Nile.

" { When two enemies become reconciled, each of
them puts to his lips a piece of iron, which is the
token of peace, and which is at once buried in the
ground at the spot where peace was made.

" c The bodies of all those who die are cast into the
Nile by the tribes who live on the banks ; but the
dead of the inland tribes are buried in front of their
houses, in a sort of sitting position, which is only

38 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

made possible by breaking the thigh-bones after
death. A lance is thrust into the ground to indicate
the tomb of a man, while on the tomb of a woman is
placed the vessel which she has used for bruising the
doura seed.

" i Every evening the people meet to dance and sing.
The singing is not so monotonous as that of the Arabs ;
the tunes are lively and varied, and the singers have
as a rule pleasant voices and keep time.

" * Although the law is that of the strongest, the
manners are for the most part very gentle. Theft and
murder are rare, except in time of war, between family
and family, or between tribe and tribe. Eobbery is
punished by the person who has been robbed, murder
by the family of the victim. The leader of each tribe,
the chief man of the family, is the one who is richest
—that is to say, who has the most wives and
stock. Polygamy is universal ; prostitution does not
exist.

" i The people consult soothsayers to obtain rain or
heat ; but the calling is not always a lucrative one,
and if the predictions do not come true the soothsayer
is sometimes put to death by having his stomach
opened. It will be easily believed that the sooth-
sayer does not always await the return of his cus-
tomers when his predictions have not been realised,
and that he loses no time in disappearing when he is
likely to be called to account in so shocking a fashion.
The only public trade is that of blacksmith.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 39

" i ANTHROPOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY.

" f I consider that from the Mediterranean to the
fourth degree, and even farther, the populations along
the Nile banks descend from races in which all the
races foreign to Africa have been absorbed. The
populations belong to two types quite distinct, but
which are in some instances fused in the same
locality, the Ethiopian and the negro types. The
Ethiopian type dominates up to the tenth degree, but
beyond that one encounters only the pure negro race,
with its thick lips, flat nose, and woolly hair.

" i It has often been asked if the Ethiopian popula-
tions have degenerated. I believe myself that they
have remained stationary. They were probably during
the splendour of the Egyptian and Ethiopian kings
what they are now. It is the might of the kings and
of the great which has perished with their palaces and
their monuments. If you except these, with the royal
tombs hewn in the rock or elevated on the pyramids,
the private dwellings, the manners, the customs, the
furniture, the arms, and the clothing were the same
that they are to-day. The study of the monuments
of ancient Egypt led Champollion to the conclusion
that the valley of the Nile derived its first inhabitants
from Abyssinia and the Sennaar, and that the ancient
Egyptians belonged to a race of men very similar to
the Barabras who inhabit Nubia at the present day.
Diodorus of Sicily was also of that opinion, remarking

40 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

that even in his day the Ethiopians affirmed that
Egypt was one of their colonies.

" 'The tribes of the Upper Nile still plait their hair
as the ancient Egyptians did theirs. The sandals
found in the Egyptian monuments are the same as
those still used by the natives, and this holds good of
the wooden head-rests, the knees, the javelins, and
the shields.

" 'The children are comparatively light-skinned at
birth, the colour gradually deepening. The age of
puberty commences at about twelve or thirteen, and
the women do not bear child after they are forty.
The peculiarity of confinements in the Sennaar country
is that the women are placed in an upright position
against a wall, and that they are often suspended by
ropes passed under the armpits, and swung to and
fro or well shaken.

" i None of the travellers or natives whom I have
consulted has ever heard of any men having a salient
coccyx.

" { I have heard of some fellatah tribes of a swarthy
or reddish colour, supposed to be of Malay origin, and
living to the south and west of Darfour.

" i I shall have the honour of presenting to the
Academy very shortly, on the part of M. Heuglein,
the complete notice which he has promised me on the
zoology of the White and Blue Niles. In the mean-
while, I append to this a manuscript map showing
the routes followed by M. Heuglein in his recent

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 41

voyages along the Nile in Abyssinia. M. Heuglein
is a very keen observer ; he uses the most improved
instruments, and he may be fully trusted as regards
all the geographical points which he has fixed. He
verified the absolute accuracy of the geographical
observations of Bruce, especially with respect to the
position of Lake Tana, which is traversed by the Blue
Nile and just below its source.

Ui HISTORICAL BEMARKS UPON THE EMPIRE OF
ME*ROE".

" i No one has ever yet been able to say what was
the extent of this empire, so rare are the remarks of
ancient authors upon this subject. According to M.
Heuglein, who has studied the question very closely
upon the spot, the ancient Empire of Meroe' was the
Sheba of Scripture. It comprised Upper and Lower
Ethiopia — that is to say Abyssinia, the Peninsula of
Sennaar between the Blue and the White Nile, the
Kordofan, the Peninsula of M^roe, between the Nile
and the Athara (Astaboras), the provinces of Berber
and of Dongola with Taka. He derived this opinion
from the inscriptions of Axoum and during his inves-
tigations of Ethiopian monuments. He discovered
pyramids at six leagues from Koseres (Sennaar, Blue
Nile), at Debbah, and at the mouth of the two tribu-
taries of the Blue Nile, the Yabous and the Taumat,
to the south-east of Fazoglu.

" ' Besides the ruins of Meroe, discovered by Cail-

VOL. II. E

42 RECOLLECTIONS Of FORTY YEARS.

land in 1819, M. Heuglein has pointed out the exist-
ence in the peninsula of those of Ouad-Benaka, Wady-
Safrah, Wady-Okateb, of Sheba, the royal city on the
right bank of the Blue Nile, five leagues from Khar-
toum, and those of Khamlim ten leagues further inland
to the east.

" ' M. Heuglein has shown me a pen-and-ink map
which was recently sent him by Mr. Eehman, a Pro-
testant missionary residing at Moubar, on the Zan-
guebar coast. This missionary appears to have
collected a good deal of information about an inland
sea called Uniamesi, of which there has been no little
talk recently, which is said to occupy an area of from
twelve to thirteen degrees north to south, and which
would in this case be larger than the Black Sea.

" 4 The existence of this sea was certified to me
during my stay at Khartoum by a pilgrim from
Mecca, who inhabits Central Africa, and who gave
Mahmoud Pasha, one of the "Viceroy's ministers, par-
ticulars corresponding to those upon Mr. Eehman' s
map. This pilgrim added that he had seen larger
vessels on the Uniamesi than that in which he had
sailed down the Bed Sea.

" * I beg to place before the Academy a specimen of
india-rubber from the Djours country, which was
brought me by M. de Malzac, and this is, I think, the
first which has been discovered in any part of Africa.
I also send a fragment of colossal convolvulus which
sometimes reaches a length of thirty feet, a new

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 43

species of convolvulus named djaugal, which grows
horizontally underground, and some convolvulus gnocchi
growing upon stems, a kind of bean called manglm and
fruit of the butter tree. These three kinds of con-
volvulus taste, when cooked, like our potato.

" < MEDICAL PART.

" 'Dr.Peney, who has collected some very interesting
information during his long residence in the Soudan
with regard to the maladies prevalent in the country,
has undertaken to prepare a medical treatise in reply
to the questions raised by M. Jules Cloquet in his
report of November 10th, 1856, and this treatise will
be presented to the Academy. I may in the mean-
while communicate to the Academy a copy of the
ordinances issued by the Yiceroy for the reorganisa-
tion of the Soudan provinces, for these ordinances, so
sensible and so liberal, while settling many important
points, also bring to light a number of details relating
to manners which are of a nature to interest the Aca-
demie des Sciences and which have a bearing upon
several of the ethnological questions which are men-
tioned in its instructions.

" < It may be said without exaggeration that from
the issuing of these ordinances civilisation has been
established and is feeling its feet in these remote
countries, from which it seemed for ever excluded.
I do not dwell upon the political consequences which
these measures may have for the people to whom

E2

44 RECOLLECTIONS Of FORTY YEARS.

they apply. I only refer to the more or less scien-
tific consequences. It is clear that the centre of
Africa, hitherto almost inaccessible, will be much less
so in future. The starting point will be Khartoum,
placed beneath a Christian governor at the sixteenth
degree, instead of Alexandria or Cairo, and it may be
taken for granted that in a near future great explories
will be made and great discoveries will be the infallible
consequence. The researches, rendered more easy, will
bear more fruit. Commerce will gain not less than
science, and everything will be ready for a vast de-
velopment of these fertile countries when the opening
of the Suez Canal brings the coasting vessels of the
Mediterranean into the Eed Sea, and especially along
the east coast of Africa. In these various ways the
ordinances issued by Mohammed Said at Khartoum on
the 26th of January open safer and more speedy roads
to science, while they at the same time mark a decisive
era in the amelioration of those lands.' '

" RESIDENCE OF THE VICEROY AT MIT-BIRE,
" (DAMIETTA BRANCH),

" March 1, 1857.

" His Highness was awaiting me at Mit-Bire,
where we at once set to work giving orders for the
continuance of the preparatory investigations and
surveys. During our absence all the orders had been
duly carried out, and as the master was absent no
one dared say a word. Captain Pheligret, employed

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 45

to take soundings in the Gulf of Pelusium, between
the Damietta branch and the ancient Pelusian branch,
did his work admirably. His vessel, despite the bad
weather, held very well in the bay with only one
anchor, and I intend to publish his observations.

" The course of the sweet- water canal has been
carefully considered by Conrad and Linant Bey, and
the plans are finished. The Yiceroy is once more full
of hope, and no one has attempted to shake this
confidence.

" It appears that he has spoken to his family about
my showing him real affection, for the princess his
wife has thanked me in a letter written me at her dicta-
tion by Madame Stephan Bey, wife of the Minister
of Foreign Affairs. Here is my answer :—

" ' To Madame Stephan Bey, Cairo.

" MIT-BIBE, March 7, 1857.

" { I told you when passing through Cairo how
deeply grateful I felt for the gracious message which
you were charged by the Yice-Queen to transmit to
me ; but I avail myself of the first moment which I
can command to express to you my thanks in writing.
Nothing could be more flattering than to receive this
mark of high esteem from a princess known not only
in Egypt but throughout Europe for her elevated
character and intelligence, as well as for her acts of
kindness and charity.

" ' What touched me most was to find that my feel-

4 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

ings of devotion towards the prince, who has since
his boyhood honoured me with his friendship, are
appreciated by the person who would be best able to
divine their nature, for gifted women have an almost
supernatural instinct for picking out, almost without
having seen them, the friends or the enemies of those
to whom they are attached. Their views are rarely
mistaken ; and there is no man, of those blessed with
a faithful and disinterested companion, who has not
occasionally had cause to regret not having followed
the advice or given heed to the presentiments to which
his vanity prevented him from paying attention.

" i The Viceroy deigned to speak to me, during our
voyage to the Soudan, of the high opinion which he
had of the clear and straightforward judgment of his
august spouse. This gives me a reason the more for
rejoicing in the confidence which she is pleased to
place in the sincerity of my attachment for a prince
who may count upon ever receiving from me the free
and respectful affection which his goodness of heart
and, as I may venture to call it, his fraternal affection
cannot fail to elicit.' '

Note to His Highness the Viceroy.

"MiT-BiKE, March 9, 1857.

"As I count upon returning very shortly to
Egypt, I would ask of your Highness to provide
Linant Bey and Mougel Bey with the means for con-
tinuing the preparatory works upon the sweet-water

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 47

canal, in accordance with the plans agreed upon with
M. Conrad, President of the International Commission.
The number of workmen, which is now four hundred,
can then be gradually raised to a thousand, pending
the date for commencing the main works, which will
be fixed later on. It will also be advisable to get
together the material and the tools, of which a list
has already been drawn up ; and no time should be
lost in arranging for the making of bricks, the
excavation of stone, and the supply of wood."

To the same.

« ' PARIS, March 31, 1857.

"Upon my arrival I had the honour of an inter-
view with the Emperor, and informed him that I was
not yet in a position to solicit the support of his repre-
sentative at Constantinople. I was also able to give
him many details, which he listened to with much
interest, about your Highness' s journey to the Soudan,
and the excellent results which would accrue from it.
The documents relating to the measures which you
decreed have been published here, and have been
made the subject of very favourable comment.

" I then proceeded to London, where I found that
the Suez Canal question had, in the course of the last
few months, made extraordinary progress. The lead-
ing merchants and bankers of the city received me
most cordially, and gave me letters of introduction
to the principal merchants, manufacturers, and ship-

48 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

owners in the fifteen largest towns of the kingdom.
The Chambers of Commerce, the merchants, the manu-
facturers, and the shipowners of these towns have
been informed that I am going to commence a series
of visits to them all about the middle of April, and
nothing will be left undone to render this tour
decisive of the question so far as England is con-
cerned. My object is to collect signatures and
declarations to the effect that the piercing of the
Isthmus of Suez will be beneficial to English interests,
as well as to those of other nations, and that no
government has any right to put obstacles in the way
of the work.

u In this way your Highness's glorious enterprise
will be based upon public opinion in England, as it
already is upon that of the European continent and
America. "While using all my efforts to attain that end,
I do not forget my promise — I may add, rny duty — to
avoid anything which might be calculated to disturb
your Highness's friendly relations with all the Powers.

" After what I have myself seen in Paris and
London, and from what M. de Negrelli writes me
from Austria and Signor Palescopa from Italy, every-
one praises your Highness for having commenced the
sweet- water canal ; and I can confidently assure you
that you can continue the work without the least
cause for uneasiness, if the weather, the requirements
of agriculture, and the government resources admit
of your doing so.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 49

" In any event, your Highness is certain to decide
for the best ; and when my English tour is ended, and
I am prepared to go to Constantinople, I will first
come to Egypt to take your orders."

MEETINGS.

The months of May and June, 1857, were devoted
to going to the principal towns in England, Scotland,
and Ireland. The resolutions passed at these meet-
ings were unanimously in favour of the execution of
the canal, that which was carried at the London
meeting (June 24th, 1857) being similar in terms to
the rest : —

"At the public meeting of merchants, bankers,
shipowners, &c., held at the London Tavern, Wednes-
day, June 24th, 1857, Sir James Duke, Bart., in the
chair, it was proposed by Mr. Arbuthnot and seconded
by Captain Harris, of the P. and 0. Steam Company,
4 That the canal through the isthmus of Suez having
been declared practicable by competent engineers,
and all nations having been invited to take part in
the enterprise, which will not be placed under the
exclusive protection of any government in particular,
this meeting, being quite satisfied with the explana-
tions given by M. de Lesseps, is persuaded that the
success of the canal will be eminently advantageous
to the commercial interests of Great Britain.' Carried
unanimously.

"JAMES DUKE, Chairman."

So RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

The account of all the meetings, beginning with
that at Liverpool on April 29th to that at London on
June 24th, was published in English, and it was
dedicated to the members of the Houses of Parliament
in the following terms : —

" I dedicate to you individually, and I submit to
your illustrious assemblies, the following pages, which
embody the resolutions and deliberations of the prin-
cipal towns in the United Kingdom, the commercial
and municipal corporations of which have formally
expressed their opinion upon the interests of the
trade, the navy, and the colonies of Great Britain, as
they would be affected by the opening of the canal
through the isthmus of Suez.

" Eeassured as I no warn as to the competent opinion
of the traders, the manufacturers, and the shipowners
of Great Britain, and being about to pursue the exe-
cution of the work upon behalf of which I do not ask
for the protection or the exclusive help of any govern-
ment, I appeal in all confidence, in order to put an end
to the opposition of the British Ambassador at Con-
stantinople, to the political bodies of a free country
which, in other circumstances, have already had the
glory of placing above every consideration of private
interests or national rivalry the great principles of
civilisation and free trade. This pamphlet, addressed
to politicians, would be regarded by them as incom-
plete unless I passed in review the elements of the
political questions which have been raised in connec-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 51

tion with, the enterprise. It has been said that the
opening of the African isthmus would threaten the
power of England in India, and in this connection an
effort has been made to revive the ancient distrust of
England for France.

"The Suez Canal has also been represented as cal-
culated to loosen the bonds between Turkey and Egypt,
and to bring about the independence of the Egyptian
Viceroy. Instead of avowing a hostility which it is
no longer possible to conceal, this hostility was masked
beneath such reasons as the so-called interests of
Turkey, or was attributed to members of the Divan,
who have repudiated it altogether, either in letters
which have been shown to me or in their conversation
with the representatives of the various governments
which have not scrupled to express their unrestrained
sympathy with the undertaking.

" Of these three questions of the relations between
France and England relative to the Suez Canal, of the
respective situations of Egypt and Turkey, and of the
interests of Turkey in the piercing of the isthmus of
Suez, the first was discussed in a letter which I wrote
to Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe at the outset of the
enterprise, and the two others in the subjoined notes
which I submit to the impartial judgment of my
readers : —

" ' The enlightened Turks, far from being alarmed
at them, see, upon the contrary, in the consequences
of the opening of the Suez Canal a guarantee of

52 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

security for the future. "What they dread above all
else is the risk of being exposed to any dangerous
eventualities upon the part of one or other of the
European Powers. They will always wish that Egypt
should be exceptionally governed by Mussulman
princes of Turkish origin, who are connected by
so many common political and religious ties to the
metropolis of Islamism.'

" With regard to the Viceroy of Egypt, in his com-
munications with Turkish statesmen, speaking of the
attempts made to raise a prejudice against him, he
said : * In the present state of things a ruler of Egypt
who had any secret idea of aggrandizing his position
would not allow the Suez Canal to be made. The
whole of the coast, from Damietta to the first ports of
Syria, is at present beyond the reach of any foreign
surveillance, as it is outside European navigation.
Nothing stands in the way of the Viceroy arming a
fleet or collecting troops without exciting notice, and
of throwing them into Syria before any one could
interfere. When the canal is made the whole situation
will be altered. Moreover, the important possessions
of Turkey in Arabia can easily be reduced by star-
vation, as Egypt has the supplying of them with corn.
There always exists in these provinces slight elements
of rebellion, which it would be easy for Egypt to keep
alive and increase, and which she alone, with the exist-
ing means of communication, could alone put down.
Experience has shown that the distance and the dim*-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 53

culty of transport prevents Turkey from sending to
Arabia enough troops to ensure her the preponderance
of power. Then we are told that the canal would create
a barrier between Turkey and Egypt. Anyone who
knows the country must be well aware that, in a
physical sense, a vast desert without water is a far
greater barrier between them than would be the mari •
time and the sweet-water canals, around which large
numbers of Syrian and Egyptian cultivators would
gather.'

"This language is not less remarkable for its out-
spoken honesty than for its striking truthfulness."

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JULY 7, 1857.
The Isthmus of Suez Canal.

Mr. H. Berkeley asked the First Lord of the Trea-
sury whether her Majesty's Government would use its
influence with his Highness the Sultan in support of
an application which had been made by the Viceroy
of Egypt for the sanction of the Sublime Porte to the
construction of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez,
for which a concession had been granted by the
Viceroy of Egypt to M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, and
which had received the approbation of the principal
cities, ports, and commercial towns of the United
Kingdom; and if any objection were entertained by
her Majesty's Government to the undertaking, to state
the grounds of such objection.

Lord Palmerston: — Her Majesty's Government cer-

54 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

tainly cannot undertake to use their influence with the
Sultan to induce him to give permission for the con-
struction of this canal, because for the last fifteen
years her Majesty's Government have used all the
influence they possess at Constantinople and in Egypt
to prevent that scheme from being carried into execu-
tion. (Hear.) It is an undertaking which, I believe,
as regards its commercial character, may be deemed to
rank among the many bubble schemes that from time
to time have been palmed off upon gullible capitalists.
(Hear and a laugh.) I believe that it is physically
impracticable, except at an expense which would be
far too great to warrant the expectation of any returns.
I believe, therefore, that those who embarked their
money in any such undertaking (if my hon. friend has
any constituents who are likely to do so) would find
themselves very grievously deceived by the result.
However, this is not the ground upon which the
Government have opposed the scheme. Private indi-
viduals are left to take care of their own interests,
and if they embark in impracticable undertakings they
must pay the penalty of so doing. But the scheme is
one hostile to the interests of this country — opposed to
the standing policy of England in regard to the con-
nection of Egypt with Turkey — a policy which has been
supported by the war and the Treaty of Paris. The
obvious political tendency of the undertaking is to
render more easy the separation of Egypt from Turkey.
It is founded also on remote speculations with regard

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 55

to easier access to our Indian possessions, which I need
not more distinctly shadow forth because they will be
obvious to anybody who pays attention to the subject.
I can only express my surprise that M. Ferdinand de
Lesseps should have reckoned so much on the credulity
of English capitalists as to think that by his progress
through the different counties he should succeed in
obtaining English money for the promotion of a scheme
which is in every way so adverse to British interests.
(Hear, hear.) That scheme was launched, I believe,
about fifteen years ago as a rival to the railway from
Alexandria by Cairo to Suez, which, being infinitely
more practicable and likely to be more useful, obtained
the pre-eminence ; but probably the object which M.
de Lesseps and some of the promoters have in view
will be accomplished, even if the whole of the under-
taking should not be carried into execution. (Hear
and a laugh.) If my hon. friend, the member for
Bristol, will take my advice, he will have nothing to do
with the scheme in question. (Hear, hear.)

To the Members of the Chambers of Commerce and of the
Commercial Associations of Great Britain.

"PARIS, July 11, 1857.

" I cannot pass over in silence the assertions which
the First Lord of the Treasury has thought fit to make
with reference to the Suez Canal scheme at a recent
sitting of the House of Commons. Replying to Mr.
Berkeley, he expressed himself hostile to the making

56 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

of the canal upon commercial, technical, and political
grounds, making use of personalities for which I prefer
not to seek an appropriate designation. "With regard
to the first point, that relating to the commercial ad-
vantages of the canal, I find an answer in the unanimity
with which the eighteen principal commercial and
industrial towns of the kingdom pronounced in its
favour. You have been unanimous in declaring that
this canal, abridging by one-half the distance to India,
would be advantageous to British commerce.

" With regard to the second point, I answer Lord
Palmerston by the mouth of the International Com-
mission, composed of eminent engineers and mariners
of all nations, England included, who, after two years
of minute study and careful exploring of the ground,
decided in the name of science that the making of the
canal would be not only possible but easy. I answer
Lord Palmerston with the sanction given to the
opinions of the engineers and their plans by the
Academic des Sciences in Paris.

" You will decide, gentlemen, between the authority
which this verdict, emanating from the leaders of
European science, carries with it and the unknown
authority to which Lord Palmerston vaguely alludes.
Without dwelling at length upon the contradiction
involved in treating the project as chimerical, and at
the same time denouncing it as dangerous, I come to
the third point. The political arguments of Lord
Palmerston seem founded upon the imaginary dangers

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 57

which the Suez Canal would create for India, as well
as for the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The
English press has already declared, of its own accord,
that the masters of India have nothing to fear from
the Mediterranean Powers as long as they are in
possession of Gibraltar, Malta, Aden, and have just
taken Perim. Turkey is at least as much interested as
Lord Palmerston in seeing that Egypt is kept within
the limits assigned to her by treaty. Now, the Divan
is so far from regarding the canal as a cause of sepa-
ration, that the English Ambassador is obliged to bring
his full weight to bear in order to defer the ratifica-
tion of the project. It is clear to the Porte, as it must
be to all reflecting minds, that the opening of the
isthmus, guaranteeing, as it will, Egypt against all
foreign ambition, will add a fresh force to the integ-
rity of the Empire, and be fraught for Turkey with
religious and economic consequences of the highest
importance.

" If a systematic yet unavailing opposition is per-
sisted in, the enterprise may be beset with difficulties
which will aggrandize rather than weaken it, but its
execution will be resolutely gone on with, and the
universal support accorded it will render its success
infallible. In the meanwhile, it will be for the com-
mercial classes of England to decide whether, in oppo-
sition to the views they have manifested, the obstacles
are to be raised by their own Government. It will be
for them to say whether they will allow a policy so

VOL. II. F

58 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

contrary to the principle of free communications and
free trade, which their nation has proclaimed in the
face of the world, to be carried out in their name, and
whether further efforts shall be made to prevent the
joining of two seas which lead direct to India and to
China, while in other ways they are doing all they
can to bring these vast countries into contact with
civilised peoples.

" I now come to the personalities, and I will endea-
vour, in replying to them, to observe the rules of mo-
deration, considerateness, and dignity, which have
scarcely been adhered to by making an attack upon
me in an assembly where I could not be heard in
defence. Lord Palmerston thought fit to state, in
terms that I will not stoop to repeat, that I had come
over to England with designs upon the pockets of his
countrymen, and in order to take advantage of the
credulity of any capitalists who might be weak enough
to believe in a chimerical enterprise. You know,
gentlemen, whether I have said or done anything to
justify imputations of this kind. Have 1 made a
single appeal for subscriptions ? You will remember
that, upon the contrary, I have several times told you
that I had come to ask you, not to subscribe for shares,
but for an expression of your opinion. If, in the
allotment of a capital of eight millions, England, like
France, is ultimately to have a fifth share, I made
this proposal out of deference to a powerful com-
mercial nation directly interested in the opening of

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 59

the new route. But the enterprise of which I am the
promoter stands so little in need of English capital
that if the share allotted to England was not
accepted in its entirety by her, it would be at once
snapped up by demands coming from all parts of the
globe.

"Such, gentlemen, is the simple and, as I believe,
irrefutable answer which I have to make to Lord
Palmerston, and which I address to the heart and
conscience of all honest men. You will do me the
justice of allowing that, in my reply, I have had proper
regard to what is due to the age and political standing
of the First Lord of the Treasury. I should, more-
over, deem it inconsistent with my own dignity, and
with the respect which I entertain for you, if I allowed
myself to speak of him in such language as he has
applied to me. I owe you these explanations because
of the kind esteem you have shown me, and for which
I feel profoundly grateful."

Note for the Emperor and Count Walewski.

"PARIS, July 15, 1857.

" I have the honour to enclose a letter which I
have written to the British Chamber of Commerce,
in reply to Lord Palmerston with reference to the
Suez Canal.

" It had been agreed, as a matter of principle, that
M. Thouvenel should be free to take action in favour
of the canal in case Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe should

F2

60 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

make any hostile move, but that, pending an agree-
ment between the two Governments, their respective
agents should maintain a neutral attitude with regard
to an enterprise due to private initiative.

" Lord Palmerston now publicly declares that < H.
B. M.'s Government has, up to the present time, used
all its influence to prevent the project of the Suez
Canal being carried out.' In view of such an avowal,
based upon inveterate mistrust of France — a mistrust
which it is no longer thought worth concealing — need
we really await Lord Palmerston' s leave to make a
formal demand upon the Sultan for the ratification of
the Viceroy1 s act of concession, especially when we
know that the Sultan is disposed to grant this demand ?
When we remember that the British Government,
without troubling itself as to what an allied govern-
ment might think of it, has obtained from Constanti-
nople several important concessions, among others that
of the Euphrates Bail way, officially supported as being
the English military road to Asia, and that it has recently
seized Perim, a dependency of Turkey, without even
so much as notifying the fact ; and when we further
remember that the opinion of the commerce of Great
Britain is unanimous in favour of the canal, who could
venture to complain if the representative of France
was authorised to protect, in agreement with the re-
presentatives of the principal Powers who are in favour
of the scheme, the interests of the holder of the con-
cession, who is a Frenchman, and who has, moreover,

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 61

but one interest to serve, that of opening a commercial
route profitable to the whole world.

" I, of course, understand that the Imperial Govern-
ment must choose its own time. I will await that time,
going on in the meanwhile with the preparations for
the project ; and if the matter is allowed to drag on
very long, all that will remain to be done will be to
formally recognise an accomplished fact."

To His Highness the Viceroy.

"July 19, 1857.

" I beg to forward to your Highness the note which
I have just handed to the French Government, and
with it I enclose extracts from English newspapers
referring to the debate in the House of Commons on
the 7th inst. I am not called upon to say what I
think of Lord Palmerston's language, which is severely
condemned by several important organs of public
opinion, among others The Advertiser (Bristol) and The
Daily News (London).

" The Advertiser says : —

" * THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ CANAL.

" ' Two great works have for some time been pro-
posed to be undertaken. They would both, if accom-
plished, take the shape of grand ship canals, the one
piercing the narrow strip of land that connects North
and South America, the other slitting up the Isthmus
of Suez, and thereby joining the waters of the Medi-

62 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

terranean with those of the Eed Sea. The construc-
tion of the former is now more problematical than it
was some years ago, the surface of the land having
been found to be difficult, with many alternations of
hill and plain. Circumstances may hereafter, in the
pressure of commercial necessity, compel the work to
be done, but at present interested speculators are con-
tent with patched routes, partly by rail and partly by
water, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The country
which forms the Isthmus of Suez is understood to be
much more favourable for the construction of a canal,
and that operation many are hopeful will be carried to
maturity.

u ' If it be so, it will not be the first time that the
isthmus has been channelled. A canal connecting the
Eed Sea with an arm of the Nile was commenced
about 2,500 years ago, and was (according to Hero-
dotus) completed by Darius. It is now as dry as the
desert, although numerous traces of its ancient direc-
tion still appear in different places. The increased
traffic with China in recent years, and the gold dis-
coveries, and consequent expansion of commerce in
Australia, have naturally caused the attention of in-
quiring minds to be directed upon any available means
of shortening the distance between Europe and those
distant lands ; and, inasmuch as the projected canal
across the American isthmus of Darien gradually fell
into a state of quietude, it occurred to the mind of
M. Lesseps, a French engineer, that the sandy plains

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 63

of the Egyptian isthmus might be so operated on as
to effect nearly the same object. Cut a ship canal
between the Mediterranean and Suez at the head of
the westernmost of the two arms or gulfs in which
the Bed Sea terminates, and by a short water
route of 92 miles across the isthmus about 5,000
miles would be saved in the voyage between this
country and India, China, and Australia. Now,
could such a saving be effectually accomplished, the
advantages which it would confer on commerce would
be enormous; and shipowners and commercial men
generally should lend the project every aid of which
it is found to be deserving. It is probable that few
engineering difficulties would be experienced in cut-
ting a canal through the isthmus, for the material to
be excavated consists generally of sandstone lying in
horizontal strata, or of sand, the consequence of dis-
integration of the sandstone. The main difficulty
would probably be found in the Eed Sea, with regard
to its capability of allowing the passage of " the
largest ships " throughout its entire length of about
1,400 miles. We observe that at the meeting on the
subject held last week in Bristol, Mr. D. A. Lange
said u experiments had been made which showed that
the bed of the sea was singularly adapted for dredging,"
which countenances the apprehension that the waters
of " this sea " are in parts comparatively shallow,
however deep generally; and it will be only com-
mon prudence to ascertain all about the necessity of

64 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

" dredging " a sea before investing eight or ten millions
sterling in the formation of a ship canal capable of
accommodating vessels which might by possibility be
stopped at Suez or somewhere in the long navigation
that ensues before the Straits of Bab-el-Mendeb are
left behind. To ascertain the actual state of the vari-
able Eed Sea should be a chief object of preliminary
survey, for its navigation is as yet comparatively
obscure, although the port of Suez is the point of
communication between Europe and India in connec-
tion with the Overland Mail

" cThe resolution moved by Mr. R P. King, after
stating that the projected ship canal would be of the
greatest importance to the commerce of the whole
world, added, "And would afford facilities which
no railway could present." This is a cut at a rival
scheme for shortening the route to India, and for
generally facilitating the intercourse of Europe with
Asia, which has been devised, we believe, by Colonel
Chesney, who proposes to carry a railway from the
Mediterranean into the valley of the Euphrates, to
follow the course of that river south-eastward, and
thence proceed to Hindostan by way of Persia and
Belochistan. It really does appear that such an
undertaking would be more formidable than cutting
a canal 92 miles long through sand and sandstone.
Much, however, as already said, depends upon the
character of the navigation of the Bed Sea — its winds,
its coral reefs, Ac, ; and if it be correct that M. Lee-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 65

seps's project has received high engineering testimo-
nials in its favour, it must not be forgotten that
Colonel Chesney has carefully surveyed the entire
route from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and
the course of that river to the Persian Gulf, and is
himself a practical engineer of the highest possible
authority.

" i Supposing that no insuperable material difficulties
are found in the way of M. Lesseps, and that money
is obtained to form the canal, a trade revolution would
be effected calculated to surprise the world. In that
case Europe need not care about the ultimate pro-
ceedings in the Isthmus of Darien, and the navigation
of the stormy Cape would be almost forgotten. The
resources of Arabia and Eastern Africa would be
developed, as far as they are capable of development,
and the voyage to India, Australia, China, &c., be
shortened by about a third.

" ( We think, consequently, on the whole, that the
merchants and shipowners of Bristol have done well
to accord to M. Lesseps their frank and cheering
countenance, as a preliminary, mayhap, to their pecu-
niary support. No national jealousy should exist in
such a case. And if we have seen some ground
for suggesting caution, we should have done the
same had Colonel Chesney patronised the canal and
the Arabian Gulf, and the French engineer had
projected a railway through Asia Minor, and so on to
the regions of the far East.' '

66 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

To Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., Engineer.

" LONDON, July 27, 1857.

" I enclose you a copy of the speech, as reported in
The Times j delivered by you in the House of Commons
on the 17th inst., and I shall be obliged if you will
inform me whether this report is a correct one. The
engineers of the International Commission, who have
all their lives long devoted their studies to the con-
struction of ports and canalisation, can best answer
the technical part of your speech* but there is one
point to which I venture to call your attention, because
it concerns me personally. You said, according to The
Times, i I agree with the First Lord of the Treasury.'
Now, Lord Palmerston, who holds a position which
prevents me from addressing myself to him personally,
had just spoken as follows : — i I do not think, there-
fore, that I am far wrong in saying that the project is
one of those chimeras so often formed to induce Eng-
lish capitalists to part with their money, the end being
that these schemes leave them poorer, though they
may make others much richer.' I ask you, sir, for
a written explanation of what you mean, either fur-
nished by yourself or by two of your friends, whom
you will please put in communication with me. I do
not doubt that you will at once give me these explana-
tions. I have come over from France on purpose to
ask you for them. I have the honour, sir, to place
myself at your disposal."

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 67

Mr. Charles Manly to M. Ferdinand de Lesseps.

" LONDON, July 28, 1857.

" Mr. Stephenson returned this morning, and I at
once gave him your letter, which I had translated
word for word. He repeated what, as I had already
told you, he had said — viz., that his remarks about the
canal were based upon the ideas he had formed in the
course of his two journeys to the desert, and that he
had only expressed his opinion in the House when
appealed to by Lord Palmerston and several members
who had your pamphlet in their hands. He has ex-
pressed his extreme regret that you should have sup-
posed that he meant to make any attack upon your
personal character, or that he endorsed any expressions
of Lord Palmerston which might be taken to have
this meaning. Upon the contrary, he has always held
you in high esteem, and has invariably spoken of you
in that sense.

" Moreover, he has gladly written you the enclosed
letter which, I hope, will convince you that he merely
expressed a technical opinion upon a matter being
publicly discussed. Mr. McLean agrees with me that
Mr. Stephenson had not the slightest intention of
saying anything personally offensive to you."

Reply of Mr. R. Stephenson to M. F. de Lesseps.

"LONDON, July 28, 1857.

" Dear Sir, — Nothing could be further from my
intention, in speaking of the Suez Canal the other

68 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

night in the House of Commons, than to make a single
remark that could be construed as having any per-
sonal allusion to yourself, and I am confident no one
who heard me could regard what I said as having any
such bearing. When I said that I concurred with
Lord Palmerston's opinion, I referred to his state-
ment, that money might overcome almost any physical
difficulties, however great, and that the undertaking,
if ever finished, would not be commercially advan-
tageous.

"The first study which I made of the subject, in
1847, led me to this opinion, and nothing which has
come to my knowledge since that period has tended
to alter my view.

" Yours faithfully,

" BOB. STEPHENSON."

To Mr. Charles Manby, Secretary of the Society of Civil
Engineers, London.

"LONDON, July 29, 1857.

" I have received your letter of yesterday, together
with that of Mr. Stephenson. While satisfied with
his explanations, so far as regards myself, 1 am still
very much astonished that an engineer should have
allowed himself to express himself in the House of
Commons so dogmatically with regard to an enter-
prise which he has not been in a position to examine
either upon the spot or in his study, especially when
he fails to give at the same time the grounds upon

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 69

which his opinion is based. The eminent engineers
who form the International Commission will answer
him in a very short time. He will then have to speak
very explicitly upon the technical question, and I shall
be very well satisfied if the ancient or recent studies
of Mr. Stephenson shed any new light upon an enter-
prise which has for the last three years been under
the attentive examination of all the savants in
Europe."

To M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Paris.

" LOVDOH, July 80, 1857.

" I shall not leave London till I find that there is
nothing more for me to do.

" I am thankful that I was not there when the ques-
tions were put by Messrs. Berkeley and Darby Grif-
fith, as I could not have prevented them, and it would
have been risky to have asked our supporters in Par-
liament to get up a debate when Lord Palmerston has
so large a majority. This majority would, in order to
keep him in office, have voted against us, which, as
matters stand, it has not done, thus leaving Lord
Palmerston alone responsible, in the eyes of Europe,
for the use of language all the more violent and
absurd because there was no one to answer him, and
for a policy which is generally condemned, even in
England.

" We had thought that it would be very advisable
to get public opinion in France to express itself in

70 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

some legal form with regard to the Suez Canal. The
Councils- General are summoned to meet next month ;
Lord Palmerston's attacks have stirred public feeling ;
the French press of all shades of opinion, with true
patriotic feeling, has strongly condemned them. We
ought to take advantage of this state of things. I
send you the draft of a circular, which might also be
sent to the Chambers of Commerce, whom we will
ask to pass resolutions in favour of our enterprise."

To M. Thouvenel, Constantinople.

" LONDON, August 2, 1857.

" After Lord Palmer ston's declarations I am more
certain of success than ever. When the time comes
the financial co-operation of France may be counted
upon without a doubt.

" No one here has ventured to stand by the First
Lord of the Treasury ; he has been condemned by the
leading men in the country, even by those who, in
the critical position now occupied by England, think
it their duty to keep him in office. I had been told
of this by letter while in Paris, but I thought it best
to come over here and satisfy myself that such really
was the case. I may add that my own observa-
tions, to say nothing of the exceptional warmth of my
greeting, fully confirm this view.

" I agree with you that the Constantinople press
should be very prudent, and I have already urged my
friends to treat the position of the Porte, powerless

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 71

though it is, with the utmost tenderness and de-
ference. But in due course the Divan will certainly,
in presence of the universal wishes and support of
other Powers, be bound to assert its independence and
dignity before the world. I may add that the accom-
plishment of these duties will be a source of strength
rather than of embarrassment. This is the opinion of
Prince Metternich, one of the oldest and most trusty
friends of Turkey.

" They must be beginning to see at Stamboul,
especially since the seizure of Perim, that if a certain
great Power wishes to close the Eed Sea, as she
succeeded in doing more than a century ago, by a
decree of the Porte, it is with a view to her sole profit,
and not in the interest of the Ottoman Empire, for
whom rapid communication with the holy places of
Arabia is almost a matter of life and death. It is not
very long since The Times declared that Great Britain
was 'the first Mussulman Power.' It was hitherto
supposed that Turkey was. I know who wrote that
article, and you may be sure that it was only a feeler.
According to this system the seizure of Perim would
be only the first step in a more complete invasion."

To His Highness the Viceroy.

"PARIS, August 12, 1857.

" The manifestations of the commercial bodies and
of the citizens of all countries day by day condemn
more strongly Lord Palmerston's declarations, but I

72 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

cannot affect to ignore that these declarations, which
will serve as a guide to the diplomatic agents of
England, will cause your Highness a good deal of
annoyance, which I should wish to spare you. You
can put upon me all responsibility for the preliminary
works on the canal, and with this view I have in-
formed MM. Eenaud and Lieussou, who have been
appointed to survey for the making of the sweet-water
canal, that I was about to propose to your Highness
not to execute the work at your own cost, but to
leave it in the hands of the Universal Company, which
will doubtless be organized very shortly.

"If we look back to what occurred in regard
to Egypt during the years 1839-40 we find that
there is a good deal of analogy between then and
now. Thus among the grievances alleged by the
Porte, at the instigation of Lord Ponsonby, the
English Ambassador, to justify the armed intervention
against Mehemet Ali, was one to the effect that he
had attempted to interfere with Great Britain's com-
munications with India, by way of Egypt and
Syria. The only foundation for this charge was in the
following opinion, confidentially expressed by Me-
hemet Ali in a despatch to the Grand Yizier : —

" ' That the opening of the passage from Europe
to the Indies, by way of Egypt and Syria, ought
to be made for the benefit and with the concurrence
of all nations, and ought not to constitute a mono-
poly for the profit of England alone, a monopoly

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 73

which would be very dangerous for the rights of the
Sultan.'

" This question was referred to in the French
Chamber, in the course of a debate upon the negotia-
tions which followed the battle of Nezib, and M. de
Lamartine spoke as follows : —

" 'Nature is stronger than these wretched national
antipathies. Europe and India will communicate,
despite all you may do, by way of Suez. You will
but have delayed this great and beneficent act of
Providence ; the two worlds will join hands, and
gather new life as they do so, by way of Egypt.'

(iWe have now the Indian mutiny, which will
supply the English press with a new and powerful
argument against Lord Palmerston, and against the
reluctance to make use of the route through Egypt.
An Englishman writes as follows to The Daily Neivs : —

" ' The last- news of the mutiny in India reached
England on June 17th. Since then a body of 2,000
men might have been despatched from England
every fortnight, and have reached India by way of
Egypt in six weeks. "Why does not the Government
send troops to India through Egypt ? The Govern-
ment has refused to answer. It is because of its
reluctance to furnish the promoters of the Suez Canal
with an argument the more.'

"In the meanwhile the mutiny is running its course,
and costing the lives of many brave men, who were
looking for more prompt relief than that sent by way

VOL. II. G

74 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

of the Cape. More than this, Nana Sahib, in a pro-
clamation addressed to the Mahometans of India, tells
them that the Sultan, in a firman addressed to the
Viceroy, has ordered him to close Egypt, c which is
the route to India,' to the British troops, that in
consequence there was no need to be afraid of their
approaching arrival, and that on receipt of this news
Lord Canning, the Governor- General, < was over-
whelmed with despair, and was beating his head.'

" This Indian insurgent little knew when he in-
vented this piece of news that it was the reverse of
the truth, and that the able and enlightened ruler of
Egypt was preparing for the opening of the Suez
Canal, which the Prime Minister of England and her
ambassador at Constantinople were opposing.

" The English journal which publishes Nana Sahib's
proclamation adds, Fas est ab Jwste doceri"

To the same.

"LA CHENAIE, September 10, 1857.

l< I forward to your Highness copies of the resolu-
tions addressed to the French Government by the
Councils- General and the Chambers of Commerce,
together with several letters of foreign Chambers of
Commerce, among which that of the Barcelona
Chamber deserves special mention.

"The English Government has at length made up its
mind to send troops to India through Egypt. Your
Highness is too high-minded not to favour in every

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 75

possible way the despatch of these troops intended to
ensure the triumph of civilisation over barbarism.

"Lord Palmerston's conduct is still very severely
condemned, and one journal says : ' Let us hope that
he will see by this what a blunder he has made, and
how dangerous it will be for him to persist in it.'

" But this is not all, for, in addition to the Coun-
cils-General, the Chambers of Commerce of the thirty-
seven largest French towns have sent resolutions to
the Government expressing their concurrence in the
project for making the canal, while the Paris Chamber
of Commerce has placed itself at the head of these
manifestations which are only just beginning. With
less obligation to be guarded in their attitude than
the Councils-General, the Chambers of Commerce also
protest against the attitude of Lord Palmerston, and
urge the Government to intercede and ensure the
execution of a project which will be one of the glories
of the century. "

To Mr. Darby Griffith, M.P., London.

" PARIS, September 15, 1857.

" I have read with much interest the speech which
you made in the House of Commons, and of which you
have been kind enough to send me a copy.

"You expressed with force and eloquence the most
noble and just ideas as to the true policy of England
in this important question. I feel, like you, very
certain that Lord Palmerston is making a most unfor-

G2

76 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

tunate blunder in thus opposing a work which will
be more useful to British commerce than to all the
rest of the world. This course is all the more ill-
judged because it has no chance of succeeding, and
if, in the eyes of some politicians, the end justifies the
means, Lord Palmerston's conduct, in his deplorable
campaign against the Suez Canal, has not even the
chance of succeeding.

" Permit me to make some minor criticisms with
regard to certain details of your remarkable speech.
No doubt what you say about the workmen in Egypt
holds very true of the time when you were travelling
through the country. But since the accession of the
new Viceroy there has been a great change. The
cleaning out and the enlargement of the Mahmoudie
Canal in April, 1856, prove that at the present time
public works are carried out with due humanity, and
that the task set the workmen is neither beyond their
strength nor fatal to their health. Out of 115,000
men assembled for a full month, not more than five
or six per thousand fell ill. I doubt whether we
could show a better average than this in Europe. In
making the Suez Canal, it will be very easy to bring
the Nile water as far as Lake Timsah, in the centre of
the isthmus, which it reaches even now when the
river rises. This region, now barren and uncultivated,
formerly had a considerable population, and we dis-
covered there the ruins of many cities. It was the
land of Goshen spoken of in the Bible.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL.

i ,

" As to the practical difficulties, whether at Suez
or Pelusium, they are not nearly so great as might
have been imagined previous to the survey made by
the eminent engineers who spent some time in the
isthmus, and the very conclusive observations made
in the Bay of Pelusium.

"To conclude, I may add that you seem to ine to
be too well versed in economic questions not to be
led, after careful examination, to the conclusion that
the enterprise will be financially remunerative, if you
cast your eye over the official statistics which show
how enormously European trade is increasing in
Asiatic waters, the English figures for 185C showing
an increase of 181,000 tons over the previous year."

To His Highness the Viceroy.

" LA CHENAIE, September 28, 1857.

"At a sitting of the House of Commons, refer-
ence being incidentally made to the Suez Canal, Mr.
Gladstone expressed himself in favour of the most
recent project, and condemned the Government for
opposing the manifest wish of the nation to participate
in the execution of this enterprise. He said : —

" ' There is no one who, casting his eyes over the
map of the globe, can deny that a canal through the
Isthmus of Suez must be a great step towards the
welfare of the whole world. This project commands
the assent and sympathy of all the governments of
Europe, especially that of France, our great ally.

78 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Nothing, therefore, can be more deplorable than this
conflict at Constantinople between the Ambassadors
of France and England with respect to the canal.'

" The Daily News, in a leading article of the follow-
ing day (September 10th), says: —

" < This pretended right to keep the East for our-
selves and exclude the rest of Europe from the Eed
Sea is the survival of an antiquated policy of which
Lord Palmerston remembers far too much. This is a
senile piece of nonsense on his lordship's part which
ought to be got rid of for good, as it doubtless would
have been if there had been twenty members present
in the House who understood the question. For what
have we to gain by excluding the European Powers
from Asiatic waters ? France has aided us in our
negotiations with Persia. Her co-operation is still
more desirable in the war with China. Perhaps in
the last century it might have been prudent and
practicable to act alone in the affairs of the East, but
at the present time there is no Power which does not
stand in need of allies either in Europe or Asia. We
need hardly point out that our best ally is France.
The policy of the Cabinet, or rather that of Lord
Palmerston, during the past year, has been to defy
all Europe, France included, as regards the Suez
Canal, and to declare, "The Eed Sea is mine; you
shall not enter it."

" Eef erring to the transport of troops over the Isth-
mus of Suez, The Daily News of October 2, 1857, said: —

2 HE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 79

"'Thus the English Government admits that the
Suez route is the best for communication with India,
and after stubborn resistance, broken down by neces-
sity, resolves to send by this route some of the troops
which are being despatched to the relief of our
gallant soldiers in India. Nothing could be a more
complete avowal of the utility of M. de Lesseps's
scheme ; and this action of the Government is the
implicit condemnation of Lord Palmerston and Lord
Stratford de Kedcliffe, who have hitherto opposed the
scheme. It would seem as if Providence had set itself
to inflict upon them the chastisement which they de-
serve, by making them, so to speak, responsible before
public opinion for the difficulties which their country
is experiencing in putting an end to the calamities
which are so preying upon its interests, its affections,
and its power. . . . Lord Palmerston and Lord Strat-
ford de Redcliffe have not seen or foreseen anything
of this. . . . Lulled by a false sense of security, they
have yielded to their inclination for making them-
elves disagreeable to others.' J

Note for the Emperor Napoleon.

" PARIS, October 20, 1857.

" The facility with which the Suez Canal can be
made has been proved beyond all cavil by the Inter-
national Commission of Engineers. The hearty and
unflinching concurrence of the Viceroy and the free
offer of capital ensure the success of the financial

8o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

operation. The unanimous wish of the various nations,
expressed with remarkable unanimity by the voice of
the press or the deliberations of official bodies, has
acquired for the enterprise the sympathy and support
of their governments, and the conclusive resolutions
passed at twenty meetings in the principal manu-
facturing and leading towns in England, together
with the manifestations of the Councils- General and
Chambers of Commerce in France, have testified to
the harmony of the two allied nations, and have
isolated the egotistical opposition which in vain
attempted to create discord between them.

" This being so, it is now my duty, as holder of
the concession for the work, to proceed to Constanti-
nople and negotiate with respect to the Sultan's
authorization, which was not, strictly speaking, neces-
sary, according to the principle laid down by the
British Embassy a propos of the railway from Alex-
andria to Suez, but which the Viceroy thought it
right to solicit, in order to show his deference for his
Suzerain, and to avoid giving any pretext to those
who were ill-disposed for justifying their opposition.
I may reckon upon being supported at Constantinople
by the legations of Austria, Eussia, Holland, Bel-
gium, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic
towns, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Tuscany, the Two
Sicilies, Greece, and the United States.

" In order to maintain the universal character of
the enterprise, I shall address myself to the repre-

THE ORIGIN GF THE SUEZ CANAL. Si

sentatives of these Powers, as well as to the French
Embassy, should Lord Stratford de Eedcliife use his
influence to hamper the liberty of the Divan.

" It may be that this influence will not be exerted
now that Lord Palmerston has been compelled by the
attitude of Parliament and public opinion to modify
the violence of his original declarations, especially
since the occurrence of the horrible events in India,
which have shown that ' there is no security for the
future if the Government does not take effective steps
for bringing the mother country n< aivr to her Eastern
colonies, and unless the first of these steps is to secure
the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez.7

a I do not ask the Imperial Government to take
any initiative, or to abandon the wise reserve which
it has hitherto observed ; but if during my negotia-
tions at Constantinople I should have occasion, in my
quality of a Frenchman and holder of the concession
for an enterprise in which France is interested, to
claim the intervention of the French Ambassador, as
well as that of the representatives of other Powers,
I hope that M. Thouvenel's protection would be
accorded me, and that the Emperor will be pleased
to instruct him to that effect."

To II. I. H. Prince Napoleon.

"PARIS, October 12, 1857.

" In compliance with your kind suggestion, I have
the honour to enclose you the note for the Emperor,

82 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

explaining the present state of affairs relating to the
Suez Canal. I trust you will say all you can in sup-
port of the request that instructions may be sent to
M. Thouvenel. The following are those already sent
to the representatives of Austria at Constantinople
and Alexandria : —

" i By reason of the keen interest which the
Austrian Government feels in the enterprise of the
Suez Canal, the demands made by the Viceroy of
Egypt in this matter are to be supported as effica-
ciously as possible by the Austrian agents in the
East, acting in harmony with the French diplomatic
agents.'

" Upon the other hand, I am assured of the sup-
port of the United States Minister, as the Washington
Government regards opposition to the opening of the
maritime canal as an infringement upon the freedom
of the seas."

To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris.

" PARIS, November 3, 1857.

" I have just seen Prince Napoleon, upon his
return from Compiegne, and he assures me that the
Emperor is very favourably disposed and sees no
objection to my claiming the support of M. Thouvenel
within the limits of my note of the 20th ult., which
Count Walewski has had before him. I am both
inclined and advised to act with prudence, and I
shall be careful to avoid any cause of conflict.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 83

" I am personally very grateful to the Emperor for
what he said to Prince Napoleon about me. He made
no secret of his hearty wish for the success of the
undertaking."

To M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Paris.

11 CONSTANTINOPLE, December 16, 1857.

" I yesterday made my first visit to Keschid Pasha,
who was reappointed Grand Yizier a short time ago,
and to other Ministers and functionaries, and the
first dragoman to the Embassy, who accompanied me,
informed them all that he was instructed by M. Thou-
venel how much interest his Government attached to
the success of my negotiations with them.

" Keschid Pasha seemed very pleased at this
resumption of relations with the French Embassy,
and in two or three days Aali Pasha, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, will give a grand dinner, to which
M. Thouvenel, Keschid Pasha, and myself will be
invited.

" Keschid knows perfectly well that the French
Embassy is going to give his temper and disposition
a fresh trial, and he is too anxious to remain in office
to compromise himself if he can help it. I shall not
commence my parleys with him and the other minis-
ters until after this dinner of reconciliation. How-
ever, I am not losing any time, and am preparing
my ground in all directions, for there is in all
countries, even in Turkey, a public opinion of which

84 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

account must be taken, and in neglecting no oppor-
tunity, great or small, of obtaining partizans, I help
the work on."

To Count Th. de Lesscps.

"CONSTANTINOPLE, December 25, 1857.

" Yesterday I had a conference, extending over
two hours, with Eeschid Pasha in his house at
Emerghian, on the Bosphorus. I did not fail to say
all I could think of as likely to strike him, and show
him the advantage of a favourable solution emanating
from the initial action of Turkey herself.

" Eeschid brought me back in his steamer, and as
we were alone we were able to carry on the conver-
sation. He readily made me formal promises, and I
was even astonished to find how very strongly he
expressed himself in favour of the canal.

" I gave him to understand that I set less store by
his promises than by the manner in which he carried
them out, either upon his own responsibility, or at the
orders of the Sultan or the Cabinet, in the event of his
not caring to take the personal responsibility of the
matter. I learnt that upon leaving me he lost no time
in submitting to the Ministerial Council a memorandum
which I had previously shown to M. Thouvenel and
of which he expressed his approval. I send you a
copy of it for Count Walewski. Previous to my con-
ference with Eeschid I had a separate interview with
each member of the Council, and I did all I could to

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 85

win their ear in favour of the enterprise. I have also
had one or two important conversations with Nedgib
Pasha, whom the Sultan had recently sent to Egypt.
He is a sort of steward of the Harem, and he is in
such favour with his sovereign that the ministers have
to keep on good terms with him.

" My arrival at Constantinople was very opportune,
as the intrigues of the English Embassy, which have
been at work for the last three years, were beginning
to tell, and threatened to take root.

"You can tell the minister that M. Thouvenel never
goes too far, and is not at all likely to compromise
himself; but few ambassadors could do what he can
in a country of this kind, so long as he is left free to
act in his own way. The representatives of the foreign
powers continue to aid me with their advice and
influence, and I have communicated my memorandum
to each of them. The Times correspondent is sending
it to his journal.

" I have now something confidential to tell you
which will explain why Lord Stratford de Eedcliife
went on leave before my arrival. I learn from a
foreign source that during the visit of the Emperor
and Empress to Queen Yictoria, at Osborne, the Suez
Canal question was discussed at a conference attended
by Lord Palmerston and Count Walewski. As the
Prime Minister could not get the French Government
to use its influence here against the canal, the only
thing done was to renew the agreement that the

86 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

diplomatic agents of both countries should remain neu-
tral in the matter. This was equivalent to admitting
that the neutrality had been violated, as indeed Lord
Palmerston had already declared in public. In any
case, this principle is again to be adopted in theory,
but if in practice we are weak enough to carry it out
I am ready to prove now that the English will not.
In order to have the appearance of doing so, they have
sent Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe on leave and put in his
place Mr. Alison, his first secretary, who is not less
devoted than himself to the Foreign Office, while in
Egypt the honest and trusty Mr. Bruce is replaced
at the Consulate-General of Alexandria by Mr. Green.
" Count Walewski, who was present at the Osborne
conference, will be able to tell you whether I am
right."

Memorandum to Reschid Pasha.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, December 29, 1857.

"I have the honour to request your Highness to
apply to the Sultan for an Irade authorizing the
Commercial Company, of which I am the represen-
tative, to execute the works intended to effect a
junction between the Mediterranean and the Eed Sea
by means of a maritime canal.

" At the time of my first visit, three years ago, to
Constantinople, during which your Highness was kept
duly supplied with all the preliminary documents, you
were pleased to write me a letter (March, 1855) in

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 87

which you spoke of the enterprise as being i most
useful/ adding, 'in conformity with the Imperial
order relating to this interesting undertaking, the
question is now before the Cabinet Council.'

" Since then, in order to facilitate the examination
and decision of the Sublime Porte, I have endeavoured
to clear away the objections urged as to the possibility
of the enterprise, or the fear of its being inimical to
the legitimate interests of foreign powers. The first
objection has been disposed of by the report of the
International Commission of Engineers, and the second
by the unanimous expression of public opinion in all
countries. The adhesion of the Continental govern-
ments has been not less explicit, and with regard to
England I think it well to mention the last official
statements made in the House of Commons on August
14th ult., subsequent to the resolutions adopted by
the Associations and Chambers of Commerce, and by
the many meetings held in the principal towns of
Great Britain.

" At this sitting of the House, Mr. Gladstone ex-
pressed himself as follows : —

u < The House ought to treat the Suez Canal scheme,
as well as the Euphrates Eailway and the telegraph
schemes, as a purely commercial question, acting upon
the assured principle that the best judges of a com-
mercial speculation are those who have undertaken to
put capital into it. If this question should ever be
converted by the Government into a political one,

88 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

there would be every danger of a break in that Euro-
pean concert and agreement which are of such capital
importance as regards our Oriental policy. Yet no
one can look at a map of the world and deny that a
canal through the Isthmus of Suez would, if it were
practicable, be of great service to humanity. This
project has been approved and found excellent by all
the governments of Europe, especially by France, our
great ally. What could be more unfortunate, there-
fore, than to find quarrels arising on this subject
between the ambassadors of our two countries at
Constantinople ? Bearing in mind our Indian posses-
sions, do not let us give room in Europe for the belief
that, for the maintenance of our rule in India, it is
necessary that we should oppose measures which are
advantageous to the general interests of Europe. Do
not let us allow so deplorable an inconsistency to take
root, for this would weaken our power in Hindostan
more than ten such mutinies as that which has just
occurred.'

" Lord Palmerston replied : —

" ' The chief and only motive that we have urged
upon the Turkish Government against accepting the
proposed plan is not the injury caused to England,
but the injury caused to Turkey, the danger of impair-
ing the integrity of the Ottoman empire.

"'The whole question, therefore, is now confined
to a right understanding as to what the interests of
the Ottoman Empire really are. It is clear that this

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 89

can only be known to the Government of the Sultan,
to which I appeal with the conviction that the careful
examination which it has already made will have
demonstrated to it the many advantages which Turkey
must derive from the execution of the Suez Canal. In
explanation of this it is only necessary to remind you
that the route from Constantinople to the Indian Ocean
will be abridged by 4,800 leagues, that the Ottoman
possessions of Arabia and the East Coast of Africa
will be brought within touch of the metropolis, and
that the easy access to the Eed Sea will be an ines-
timable advantage for the Mussulman pilgrims to the
holy places.

"When the Imperial Government has given the
opinion which it deems suitable to its interests, it will
also be free to declare that the maritime canal is to be
open at all times as a neutral passage to all the
merchant vessels going from sea to sea, without any
exclusive destination, or any preference as regards
nationality. The accession of the foreign Powers,
whom the Sublime Porte will doubtless invite to give
their adhesion to its declarations, will be no more than
the outcome of a fact which the Porte has already de-
cided to accomplish in keeping with its competency
and rights. This was the opinion expressed by
Prince Metternich in the course of an interview
which I had with him, and which was communicated
by me to the different cabinets in Europe and the
United States, whose representatives at Constanti-

VOL. II. H

90 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

nople have received instructions to support my
action.'

"These considerations will form the elements of our
negotiations, and I am at your Highness' s disposal and
at that of the Sublime Porte for any further informa-
tion or explanations which may be deemed necessary.
I am convinced that at a moment when the most
enlightened men in the Ottoman Empire are happily
united in order to carry out the liberal intentions of
their sovereign, the project for piercing the Isthmus
of Suez will, after having been consecrated by science
and public opinion, meet with a favourable reception
from the councillors of the Sultan."

To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris.

"CONSTANTINOPLE, January 11, 1858.
" Here is an unfortunate occurrence which will
probably have an awkward effect upon the negotia-
tions relating to the canal. I refer to the sudden and
unexpected death of Eeschid Pasha. I had seen him
the day before, and he was in excellent health. I am
told that after drinking a cup of coffee he was seized
with convulsions and vomiting, and soon expired. In
order to put an end to all the rumours in circulation,
a commission of European physicians was appointed,
and though they were unable to make a post-mortem
examination, they issued a report that the death was
due to natural causes. The people of the East are

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 91

very slow to believe this when a great personage dis-
appears. Be this as it may be, I regret his death in a
double sense : in the first place, because it is a per-
sonal loss ; and, in the second place, because he seemed
to have shaken himself pretty free of English influence
in regard to the canal.

" His successor, Aali Pasha, is beyond all question
the most upright and best informed man in the
Empire, but he is extremely timid, and reluctant to
take any initiative. The threats of Lord Palmerston
after the Congress of Paris will always be ringing in
his ears. In any case, I shall be on the best of terms
with him personally, and he will have the wish, if he
has not, as I fear, the power, to keep his promises."

To M. Thouvenel, Constantinople.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, February 6, 1858.
"I had a long conversation this morning with
Aali Pasha, and explained to him our mutual situa-
tion with the utmost frankness, and communicated to
him the reports which I had received from Paris,
London, and Egypt. Finding that I did not wish to
press him too closely, and that I took into account
the difficult position in which he was placed, he made
no secret of the fact that he was desirous of awaiting
the result of the questions which were going to be
put in the House of Commons. I handed him the
extract of the instructions which the Yiceroy of

92 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Egypt had sent me, and he expressed his hearty con-
currence in the friendly sentiments which Mohammed
expressed. I also read him the following letter,
which I had received from Cairo under date of Feb-
ruary 6th :—

" 4,The day before yesterday the English Consul, Mr.
Green, went to see the Yiceroy and read him a letter
from Lord Clarendon, thanking him on behalf of the
British Government for the facilities afforded in the
transport of troops to India. But he added that none
of the news sent by M. de Lesseps with regard to the
progress being made at Constantinople in carrying
the canal scheme through was in keeping with his
information; that Mr. Alison, the English Charge'
d' Affaires in the absence of Lord Stratford de Eed-
cliffe, had shown Aali Pasha letters from Lord
Palmerston in opposition to the canal, and that Aali
had signed an agreement not to grant the firman
without the assent of England. These details were
repeated almost publicly in front of the Viceroy's
palace, in the presence of several persons, by Mus-
tapha Bey, the Viceroy's nephew. The Viceroy is
said to have very sensibly replied that, so far as he
was concerned, he had granted the concession for the
canal three years ago ; that he was no longer in a
position to interfere ; that the matter rested with the
Divan ; and that if England had anything to say she
must address herself to the Porte.' "

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 93

To Aali Pasha, Grand Vizier.

11 CONSTANTINOPLE, February 24, 1858.

" As it may be useful that you should know the im-
pression of foreigners, especially of Englishmen, as to
the Suez Canal, I think it well to communicate to you
the contents of a letter which I have received from an
Englishman in London. Many of the remarks made
in this letter, which I will ask you to return me, are
full of common sense, frankness, and verity.

ult is, in truth, quite time for Turkey, in the
interests of her own dignity, to come to a decision.
I quite understood, as I told you yesterday, that cir-
cumstances would not admit of your keeping the pro-
mise which you made of obtaining this decision by
March 3rd ; but allow me to remind you that it will
be difficult, if not impossible, for me, in view of the
instructions which I showed you, to wait beyond the
15th of that month. It scarcely seems to me that
the colds from which several of your colleagues are
suffering will be a sufficient reason for adjourning
this matter, which has been under consideration for
three years ; and it is one in which the Grand Vizier
alone is responsible for the decision, right or wrong,
which may be come to. I wrote yesterday to the Vice-
roy to inform him that your Highness distinctly denied
having allowed any foreign Power to fetter your
liberty of action, and that you had made no declara-
tion, either verbal or written, to any foreign diplomatist."

94 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

The following is an extract from the London letter
and the article which accompanied it : —

" Letter:

"'Are they so blind at Constantinople as not to
see that they are making over their dependency to
England, who deceives them, frightens them, and
consequently despises them. If the Sultan acts
according to his own responsibility, England will
respect him in consequence, but will never do him
any injury. When will the Turks wake up and issue
the firman ? They have been asleep long enough.'

"Article:

" < Under Lord Palmerston's Ministry threats were
addressed, both in London and at Constantinople,
to the higher agents and functionaries of Turkey.
They were told that if .the Porte showed itself favour-
able to this enterprise, it would earn for itself the
lasting hostility of England, and that, in addition, it
would probably bring about a struggle between
France and England by which Turkey would be the
sufferer.

" ' "When Lord Derby succeeded Lord Palmerston in
office, the Porte thought to avail itself of the change
to grant the firman which the Yiceroy had asked for,
and a telegram was sent to Musurus, the Turkish
Ambassador in London, requesting him to inform
Lord Malmesbury (who was Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs in Lord Derby's Ministry) that the
Government of the Sultan, not wishing to take any

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 95

action in this matter unknown to the British Govern-
ment, would be glad to know his views on the sub-
ject. Lord Malmesbury replied that he and his col-
leagues shared the opinion of the previous Ministry,
and that they should continue to oppose the under-
taking. He added that he noticed with pleasure, in
the communication from the Porte, that nothing
would be done without the consent of England. This
was how he was pleased to translate the word u un-
known'' (insu).

" c This reply excited considerable astonishment at
Constantinople. The Divan lost no time in instructing
Musurus to declare that they had never dreamed of
alienating their liberty of action in a question of internal
administration, or of making their decision dependent
upon the fiat of a foreign government ; and, finally,
that if, out of deference for an ally, they had an-
nounced their intention of taking no action unknown
to that ally, they had no idea of allowing the solution
to depend upon the consent of the British Govern-
ment.

" £ Such, from the diplomatic point of view, is the
present condition of affairs between the two govern-
ments. What you may regard as quite certain is
that the Turkish statesmen, finding that the English
Cabinet does not dare to admit openly in Parliament
the steps taken by its diplomatic agents, sees how
puerile and useless is an opposition which cannot face
a public debate.' "

96 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris.

11 CONSTANTINOPLE, March 30, 1858.

" M. Thouvenel has written me this morning as
under :—

" ' I have seen Aali Pasha and Fuad Pasha, and I
find them both of the same way of thinking that they
were, — viz., very favourable to the canal, and anxious
to make it clear to the world at large that the Porte
does not of itself raise any difficulty in the way of
your great enterprise. Aali spoke in a firm and
decisive tone which augurs well for us, and he was
very pleased at what I had to tell him.' "

To Mr. D. A. Lange, Agent of the Suez Canal Company
in England.

"CONSTANTINOPLE, April 15, 1858.

" I conveyed to you briefly, in my telegram of the
llth inst., my views as to the reply made by Mr. Dis-
raeli in the House of Commons. This telegram was
as follows : ' Mr. Disraeli talks of the sanction of
England. Such a pretension is absurd. No one
wants any sanction of the sort. The only question is,
does Lord Derby intend to go on threatening Turkey,
which wishes the canal to be made, as Lord Palmerston
did?"'

" I hope if fresh questions are put and a debate
follows, no more such disingenuous side issues will
be raised, for they do not redound to the credit of

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 97

your Parliament. But the success of our enterprise
cannot be compromised by an opposition of this kind,
and the affair, I am thankful to say, has now reached
a point which makes us independent of the antiquated
policy of some of your statesmen.

" I have attained a situation which, thanks to the
forces placed at my disposal, enable me to withstand
the efforts of my opponents. I will repeat here what
I said last year at a meeting in London, my remarks
commanding unanimous assent : £ My enterprise will
not be carried out by those who are against, but by
those who are for it,' and as the latter are more
numerous and stronger than the former, and as, more-
over, they are in the right, I shall take the liberty of
going forward, and of taking practical action, doing
without those who stand in my way.

"The Porte, which stoutly repudiate* any common
share in the opposition of the English Government, is
awaiting the public explanations which Lord Derby's
Ministry promised to make touching its policy in this
matter. If these explanations are ambiguous, or if
they are openly hostile, the Canal Company, armed
with the Egyptian concession, to which the Sultan
cannot offer any opposition, will take its own course
and enter upon the work with the capital which it
has at its disposal. This will be the most effectual
mode of replying to the ceaseless objection that the
enterprise is impracticable."

98 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, April 17, 1858.

uThe intentional dodging and backing-out of the
question which characterises the action of the English
Cabinet are not likely to stop much less to turn me
back. I look upon them merely as so many posts
which I leave behind me as I go on, and which will
soon serve to measure the distance which I have
travelled over.

u I do not understand why some politicians, whose
advice I generally follow, regret that I am here in-
stead of in London. They will not adhere to this
view if they will compare the present position of my
enterprise with what it was when I left Paris four
months ago. Lord Palmerston had then publicly
stated that the question was one for Turkey, not for
England. It became necessary, therefore, to cut off
the retreat on Constantinople which he was keeping
open for me, and from which he would have beaten
me, for, with the threats of the English agents and
the passive attitude of ours, I am now more than ever
convinced that but for my presence here Lord Pal-
merston or his successors ejusdem farince would have
wormed out of the Porte some declaration fatal to the
making of the canal.

" Such a stratagem has now become impossible,
because I am able to keep a look-out for, and to ward
off, the blows aimed at us. At the present time,

IHE ORIGIN OF 7HE SUEZ CANAL. 99

Turkey unequivocally repudiates any solidarity with,
the English opposition, and this it is which consti-
tutes my strength and will enable me to go forward
unmoved towards my end, whatever may be the re
suit of the explanations Mr. Disraeli is to offer in the
House of Commons.

" The Porte has promised to send this very day a
telegram to M. Musurus, instructing him to inform
the English Cabinet that it repudiates all solidarity
in this opposition to the Suez Canal."

To M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Pan'*.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, April 22, 1858.

" When we have made it clear that Lord Derby's
Cabinet has succeeded in eluding or in burking a par-
liamentary debate upon the Suez Canal, or if the
Government makes a positive declaration of hostility
to it, we shall be in a position to send to all our agents
and correspondents the following memorandum, which
please submit to my brother for translation, telling
him that I will keep it back if necessary, but that
my mind is made up. Lord Palmerston, by throwing
the responsibility for the opposition on Turkey, had
already contributed to advance the question of making
the Suez Canal.

" c Mr. Disraeli's declarations have decided the exe-
cution of our great work. Statesmen who represent
neither the ideas of their age or country have dared
to publicly denounce as chimerical a project elaborately

IOD RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

worked out by very competent engineers, agreed to by
the principal men of science in Europe, and accepted
by all the great commercial and maritime towns, in-
cluding those in England.

" ' As there is no more serious resistance than this
to be encountered, and as English statesmen have no
better reasons than these to justify the hostile action
of their agents at Constantinople for the last three
years, all that we have to do is to prove that the
so-called chimera is a reality.

" l The Universal Company of the Suez Canal, armed
with the regular concession of the Viceroy, to which
the Sultan offers no opposition in so far as concerns
his Suzerainty and the interests of his Empire, will,
however, be too prudent to provoke a conflict between
the policy of progress and that of retrogression, or to
give its opponents an excuse for playing upon
prejudices ; while so as to avoid all misunderstand-
ings in an affair which should retain its general and
commercial character, the Company will not ask for
the assistance of any of the governments of whose
support it was assured. But it is about to organize
itself in a definite form ; it will march resolutely for-
ward and complete its work, backed up by the invest-
ments of its shareholders of all nations, and by the
public opinion of the whole world.

ucThe Scientific Commission will meet about the
end of June, and its report will settle the conditions
under which the works are to be executed, in order to

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. lot

open the first section of the canal. A temporary
board of administration will then decide how much
capital is to be issued ; the shareholders will receive
intimation of when they are to pay their calls, and
every arrangement will be made, so that by the end
of the year the work may be put thoroughly into
hand, and carried on without interruption.'

"I sent Aali Pasha a letter of the 15th, contain-
ing a copy of your capital answer to Mr. Disraeli. I
conferred with him yesterday, and read him a copy of
the above circular. He quite understands that I have no
other course open to me, and he prefers that I should
admit that Turkey does not oppose our enterprise, so
far as concerns her interests, than that I should be
constrained to record the fact that she submits, and
without any counteracting good, to foreign pressure.

" We are, therefore, quite agreed, and I am glad,
taking everything into account, that I resolved not to
ask, for the present, of Turkey more than she can, as
she is situated, well agree to.

" It is no use deceiving oneself as to the situation,
which I think that I can see very clearly.

" When it is a question of despoiling others for the
common benefit, the English give each other a hint,
and leave the Government to do as it pleases. So
they will be banded together against us in this busi-
ness. Continental governments, which often struggle
with one another upon questions of existence — a situa-
tion of which an island power like Great Britain

ic2 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

profits largely — will not care to create external em-
barrassments for themselves, and will not hold out a
helping hand to us if we are unable to get along by
ourselves. I have shown you how things stand with
Turkey. Egypt has done all she can be reasonably
asked to do. She is not in a position to support
alone any longer the responsibilities of the enter-
prise. Admitting that the Viceroy were disposed to
do so, I should not advise him to take such a respon-
sibility on himself. The incessant intrigues of the
English agents would eventually kill him, or, with
his nervous and irritable temperament, would drive
him out of his mind. The course which I have
decided upon is therefore the only one possible, and
we must gather up all our energy, and that of our
friends, in order to march on to the goal, and not to
allow ourselves to be deterred from our course.

" The English policy has been to have a double
shot, by seizing Perim and opposing the canal. If
the policy of the Western Powers and of Turkey is
powerless as concerns Perim, our company is not
going to haul down its flag. It will be stronger than
Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli.

" "What I have decided upon will be carried out by
the end of the year, except in the improbable event of
Lord Derby's Cabinet declaring explicitly that England
renounces all opposition and leaves Turkey full liberty
of action."

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 103

To M. de Negrellij Vienna.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, April 24, 1858.

"I have received yours of the 14th, and I have
read as usual with extreme care the particulars of
your recent conversation with Prince Metternich,
whose great ability and rectitude of judgment are
unimpaired. He is quite right ; our enterprise is
ripe, and we must not be any more disheartened by
what Mr. Disraeli says than we were by the utterances
of Lord Palmerston; while we must, at the same
time, calmly consider the position in its true light,
without being too sanguine, but also without hesi-
tating or taking a single step backwards.

"You will see by my enclosures that I have
acted in accordance with these precepts, and have
taken the only course which in the circumstances
was open to me. This being so, it would be impru-
dent to thrust France into the foreground. To do so
would be almost an act of political antagonism.

" Our affair is, to my mind, in the best possible
position. My agreement with the Turks enabled me
to go steadily forward, and you will see that eventually
every one will follow in our wake when it is found
that we are not to be intimidated.

" When the time arrives for securing subscriptions
we shall be overwhelmed with applications, whatever
may be the case with other financial operations. In
France, the opposition, of England will be the chief

104 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

source of attraction for us. You may rely on me that
this will be so. You know that I am not prone to
exaggeration, but as all the information relating to
this undertaking is centred in me, I know that we
have even more power than the most sanguine of my
friends can imagine."

To M. Thouvenel, Constantinople.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, April 28, 1858.

" I received, last night, the following telegram :—
" ' Questions will shortly be asked by Eoebuck. It
will then be seen that, despite the tactics of Lord
Malmesbury and The Times, England wishes the canal
to be made. Try and coine.' "

To Aali Pasha, Grand Vizier.

11 CONSTANTINOPLE, April 28, 1858.

" I beg to forward to your Highness the original of
the telegram I have just received from London, and I
also enclose, in order to keep you posted in the action
I am taking, copies of a letter to M. de Negrelli, at
Vienna, and of the instructions sent by me to M.
Barthelemy St. Hilaire."

To M. Bartlielemy St. Hilaire, Paris.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, May 12, 1858.

" My object, which was that of showing that I am
resolved to go on in spite of all opposition, having
been attained here by the communication of my pro-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 105

posed circular, and in England by my letter to Mr.
Lange, we can now await the first discussion which is
to be raised in the House of Commons.

"This debate, and the resolution which is to be
moved in connection with it in the beginning of June,
as Mr. Lange writes me, are, moreover, facts which
must modify my plans. Instead of remaining here
until after the debate, I have determined to go to
England, taking Paris on the way, and then to return
here previous to constituting the company, with or
without the Sultan's ratification. I have just advised
the Viceroy of my intentions."

To M. de Negrelli, Vienna.

"ATHENS, May 21, 1858.

" As I had advised you was my intention, I sailed
on the 19th for Marseilles, and shall probably be in
London by the end of the month. I will telegraph
you what is done. I allow our great undertaking to
be guided by the course of events, and when the wind
changes it is necessary for one to shift one's sails,
heading as much as possible for one's destination.

" I expect to be back in Constantinople in a month.
If the English Ministry renews its declaration of
hostility in Parliament, I shall be obliged to agitate
anew in England and elsewhere. I shall publicly
announce my intention of forming the company, in
conformity with the plan which I described to you
after the previous declarations made by Mr. Disraeli."

VOL. II. I

io6 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

To M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Paris.

"PORT FIGARI (SARDINIA), May 27, 1858.
"As we were leaving the Straits of Messina, a
storm and the breaking our screw placed us in a
state of peril for three days, and we should probably
have been driven ashore but for a small steamer which
carries the mails between Genoa and Cagliari, and
which, despite the heavy seas, pluckily came to tow
us in here, where we arrived after great difficulty.
This accident will prevent my reaching London in
time to be present at the debate. Tell Lange that if
our supporters fail to stop the opposition of the
Government, it will be powerless to impede the pro-
gress of a private enterprise, and will create every-
where a very bad feeling against England."

To M. de Negrelli, Vienna ; M.Ruyssenaers, Alexandria;

and to M. Charles Aime de Lesseps, Constantinople.
(By Telegraph.)

" LONDON, June 8, 1858.

"The debate in Parliament, which made an im-
pression very favourable for us upon public opinion,
will be followed by fresh motions. The Ministry will
be beset with questions until the end of the session.
The ability and persistent energy of our partizans
ensure a moral success. The general opinion is that
the onward progress of the company cannot be
arrested, and that the opposition will be unable to

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 107

hold its own. I shall very shortly return to Egypt
and Constantinople."

To M. BartUlemy St. Hilaire, Paris.

"LONDON, June 9, 1858.

" I send you the substance of my conversation with
our ambassador, the Due de Malakoff: —

" 1st. The marshal is very well disposed towards
our enterprise.

" 2nd. He has no instructions to take any action
here.

"3rd. He seemed. relieved when I told him that
I had come to London upon business relating to the
canal, and had no need to ask for his intervention.

"4th. My assurance and the declaration which I
made him of my intention of following up the enter-
prise and carrying it into execution, despite the oppo-
sition of the English Government, created a very
favourable impression upon his mind, and upon his
attitude towards me, as he expressed the hope that
he might live to assist at the inauguration of the canal.

"At a large dinner and evening party given by
Mr. Hankey, M.P., governor of the Bank of England,
several members of the house who were formerly
opposed to the scheme, assured me that I had con-
verted them.

" In short, after having heard many opinions, I
judge the situation in England to be pretty much this :

"The sixty- two members who voted for Mr. Eoe-

io8 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

buck's motion have quite made up their minds on the
subject, and will always vote in our favour. The
remainder, who form the docile ministerial majority,
have reserved their opinion with regard to the canal,
at the request of Mr. Disraeli, in order to gain time to
acquaint themselves with its merits before voting for
or against it. A large proportion of this majority is,
according to what Mr. Eoebuck himself told me, sys-
tematically hostile to the canal, because it is syste-
matically hostile to France. Lord John Eussell, Mr.
Milner Gibson, Mr. Eoebuck, and others are going to
come to an arrangement for enlightening the House
by means of fresh resolutions, so as to force the
Ministry in their stronghold. The following is the
telegram which I have sent to Vienna, Alexandria,
and Constantinople, denning our position :—

" ' With regard to the communications of France
and England concerning the canal, it had been agreed
in principle that, in view of the fact that the two
governments held different opinions, the enterprise
should be allowed to take its own course, the more so
as it did not demand the assistance of any govern-
ment. The French and English diplomatic agents at
Constantinople and Alexandria were to remain neu-
tral, and abstain from bringing their influence to bear.'

" It is, then, most dishonest to assert that France
does not take any interest in the canal, because the
French agents have been true to the principle of
neutrality which they were instructed to observe, and

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 109

because the English have been untrue to it both in
Turkey and Egypt."

To Mr. D. A. Lange, London.

" CORFU, June 28, 1858.

" The communications I made to you in London
demolished the arguments of our adversaries as to the
alleged indifference of the French Government ; the
latest revelations made at Constantinople prove that
the second assertion as to the opposition of the Porte
is equally false, and that it is the English Govern-
ment, the representative of a loyal, powerful, and
civilised people, which has not scrupled to employ the
arms of the weak and the barbarous — that is to say,
hypocrisy and cunning — and to conceal its opposition
behind a door (porte) which it thinks it can open and
shut as it pleases.

" I may now proceed to dispose of the third asser-
tion, touching the connivance of Austrian diplomacy
with the hostile manoeuvres of the British Cabinet.

" I saw, while passing through Vienna, several of
the Emperor's ministers and various personages who
told me how things stood in Austria. I shall be glad
if you will communicate the information to our friends
in the House, but do not make it public.

" It is evident that the House of Commons was led
astray in the debate of June 1st, not only by Ste-
phenson, but by the utterances of ministers. The
majority, obtained by underhand intrigue, despite the

i jo RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

admirable speeches of the minority, must not lead the
English Ministry to suppose that it can continue
practices at Constantinople which I am determined
most resolutely to withstand, and which, if they were
resumed next month during my negotiations with the
Porte, might lead to a deplorable conflict.

" I beg of you expressly to let your fellow-country-
men clearly understand that I am not to be blamed
for any such conflict should it arrive, and that I have
forewarned all my English friends of the many embar-
rassments which the absurd and unbearable policy of
their Government in this matter of the Suez Canal
would probably bring upon their country.

" While showing every readiness to go on with the
negotiations, I am making my preparations to get the
company in working order, and commence operations
before the end of the year.

To M. Thouvenel, Constantinople.

" CORFU, June 28, 1858.

" While on my way here I met Fuad Pasha, who
saw the Emperor during his stay in Paris. He could
not forget the wholesome rebuke of the Emperor about
'a firman relating to Egypt,' and he asked Count
Walewski what this rebuke meant, but our minister
declined to give him any explanation. I thought it
my duty to tell him as a, friend, and as one holding no
official position, that if the Emperor was vexed it was
doubtless because he thought that in a matter of this

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 1 1 1

kind Turkey ought to have displayed more initiative
and vitality, instead of attempting, as she seems to have
done, to create a political question between France and
England. For upon what ground does the Porte con-
sider itself bound to consult England about the Suez
Canal, when she did not consult France with regard
to the concession of the Euphrates Eailway? One
may, without being unduly susceptible, resent this
conduct of having two weights and measures.

u I have received the following letter from London,
under date of June 22nd :—

" l You are strongly advised not to delay commenc-
ing the execution of your work. Your course will be
watched with the keenest interest by the members
who wish you every success, and even by some of those
who voted against Mr. Roebuck's motion. It is the
universal opinion that the political question will be
settled by the common sense of the English people,
and you may be sure that as soon as it is seen that you
are about to begin making the canal there will be a
very great change.' '

To M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Paris.

" ALEXANDRIA, July 9, 1858.

" I was with the Viceroy when the news of the
terrible massacre at Jeddah arrived. Upon my ex-
pressing my indignation, he quietly observed : ' What !
you, who have known the East so much longer than
I, are surprised. But your experience ought to have

112 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

told you that when fanatical and barbarous populations
are not kept tightly in hand they are certain, one day
or another, to indulge in the most deplorable excesses.
Even here there are many people who greet you with
respect who would tear your heart out if they dared.
English policy wrested the administration of Syria
from my father, and there will be other examples of
what unbridled fanaticism is capable of. But as to
Jeddah and Arabia, our canal will put a stop to all
that, and Arabia will inevitably be brought into line
with Europe.'

" These very pertinent observations are worth
recording.

u It may be of interest to give you some particulars
about what occurred at Jeddah. I have them from
Mdlle. Elise E veillard and from M. Emerat, who escaped
from the massacre, though they were very severely
maltreated, and are still suffering from their wounds.

" Five thousand rioters swooped down upon the
French and English consulates. The English consul
was literally cut to pieces, while two of his dragomans
and an Indian servant had their throats cut. The
French consul, M. Eveillard, was stabbed and hacked
to death ; his wife was killed by a stab in the breast,
after having killed one native and wounded another.
His daughter, while this terrible scene was being
enacted, had her father's head, cut open by two sabre-
strokes, resting against her knees; and seeing M.
Emerat, the chancellor of the consulate, who had

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 113

already received three wounds, engaged in a hand-to-
hand struggle with one of the rioters, she had the
courage to make a spring at him, bury her nails in his
face, and bite him in the arm until he dropped his
weapon, which M. Emerat was then able to pick up
and use against fresh assailants, until at last he fell
exhausted and bleeding. Mdlle. Eveillard had her
cheek cut open by a yatagan, and had sunk to the
ground. The assailants, thinking that they were both
despatched, proceeded to pillage the house, and Mdlle.
Eveillard covered herself and the bodies of her parents
with the cushions of the divan in the hope that they
would all escape notice. Soon after a fresh band of
rioters came into the room, and seeing legs emerging
from the coverings of the divan, gave several sword-
thrusts at them to see if the bodies to which they
belonged were really lifeless. Mdlle. Eveillard had
the fortitude to make no movement, and the men went
away. But even then her sufferings were not over,
for the men came back, and in order to see if a large
cupboard, at the foot of which she was lying under the
cushions, contained any valuables, four or five of these
wretches stood upon them. It may be imagined what
her agony of body and mind must have been. At
length this band of savages, drunk with blood and
pillage, made off.

" There then arrived a young negro, who had been
sent to her rescue by the ladies of an adjoining harem
to whom Madame Eveillard and her daughter had a

ii4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

few days before taken some medicine. This young
negro, alone amid so many bloodthirsty enemies, had
been obliged to play a passive part until the sun had
gone down, when he made Mdlle. Eveillard understand
by signs that he had come as a friend. He rescued
her from the living tomb in which she lay, and after
many hairbreadth escapes brought her in safety to the
harem, where she was very hospitably treated.

" M. Emerat had been rescued by an Algerian Mus-
sulman who had served for twelve years in the French
army, and who had fallen upon the rioters with great
pluck when he saw them cut down the consular flag-
staff and trample the tricolour under foot. He suc-
ceeded in conveying M. Emerat to a place of safety."

To M. Ruyssenaers, Alexandria.

"CONSTANTINOPLE, July 28, 1858.

" We have every reason to be satisfied, for I have
just raised the curtain upon our last act. It was no
use wasting precious moments with the Turks, but,
taking advantage of their declarations, I have put on
record the fact of their tacit adhesion, and have placed
my interests and those of the company under the
irrefragable protection of the Emperor of the French.

" Baron de Prokesch, ambassador of Austria; M.
de Boutenieff, ambassador of Eussia ; General von
Wildenbruck, minister of Prussia; Senor de Souza,
minister of Spain, and the other diplomatic represen-
tatives at Constantinople approve of my determina-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 115

tion, will inform their respective governments of it,
and will if necessary co-operate with the ambassador
of France.
" Please inform the Viceroy of what I have done."

To M. Thouvenel, Constantinople.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, July 80, 1858.

"The conversation which I had with Aali Pasha on
my arrival convinced me that, owing to the con-
tinuous action of the English Embassy, as well as to
the discussion in the English Parliament on June 1st,
the Sublime Porte is so situated that it feels the
necessity of having a counterpoise which would
enable it, without exposing itself to formidable diffi-
culties, to go through the official formality of accord-
ing a sanction which it has already given in principle.
It undoubtedly exaggerated these difficulties, for had
it followed its own inspirations it would not have
created for itself more embarrassments than its vassal
the Viceroy, whose conduct in this matter has won
him universal sympathy, has had to face.

" But you know better than anyone how Turkey
is situated, and will therefore understand her passive
attitude in the matter.

" As the ministers of the Porte had often declared
to you that they were favourable to the canal scheme,
and that their government did not raise any difficulty
in the way of its realisation proprio motu, it seems
to me that there were no further negotiations to be

u6 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

pursued with them. I then discussed the state of affairs
with Sir Henry Bulwer, whom I had formerly known
personally well enough to admit of my explaining my
views to him with regard to the false and equivocal
position in which his government in my eyes placed
itself. The English Embassy, I said, had hitherto shown
itself very hostile to my enterprise, and yet had not
taken any official or ostensible step to justify its oppo-
sition upon the ground of English interests being
imperilled. Mr. Disraeli's utterances in the debate of
June 1st are a proof that what I say is true.

" I have informed you of my conversation with Sir
Henry Bulwer, and I now send you a copy of the letter
which, at his request, I wrote to him on the 28th inst.,
and in acknowledging its receipt he tells me that he
is about to transmit it, together with the documents I
sent him, to his government, and will await their in-
structions. It will therefore be for the Imperial Govern-
ment to protect my rights and those of the company.

" I shall continue, for my part, to do all that lies
in my power to secure the aid, if we shall require it,
of the other governments from which I have received
the most favourable assurances of good will."

To M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Paris.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, August 18, 1858.

" I have just made arrangements at Odessa for
appointing agents of the canal company in Eussia. I
have advised all the foreign embassies of my depar-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 117

ture on the 21st for the purpose of constituting the
company, and I have sent them copies of my letters
of the 28th and 30th ult. to Sir H. Bulwer and M.
Thouvenel. As the political question with regard to
England has been left to our government, and as the
tacit adhesion of the Porte has been made sufficiently
clear, there is no reason for delaying any further the
organisation of the company.

" M. Thouvenel approves of my plans, and sees no
further need for me to remain here ; for, as I have
pointed out to him, if I awaited here the decision of
the Imperial Government, I should be obliged to sub-
mit to the delay which is certain to occur in the nego-
tiations between Paris and London, whereas I am
anxious to get our board of directors together.

" Mr. Stephenson admits, in a letter to The Times,
that he only visited a part of the isthmus. I know
what part that is, for I myself saw the tracks of his
carriage wheels, which did not extend more than a
league beyond Suez. He omitted the most essential
part of the excursion — viz., to' the Bitter Lakes, from
Lake Timsah to Pelusium and the Mediterranean
coast, for that is where the only difficulties were to be
met with, difficulties which ill-will and ignorance
have been pleased to exaggerate. "With regard to the
substance of his letter, it seems to me to contain only
bare statements, without any argumentative reply to
the reports of the International Commission, or to the
scientific observations of Messrs. Paleacapa, de Ne-

ii8 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

grelli, Conrad, and Dupin, the reporter of the com-
mission of the Academie des Sciences."

To M. de Negrelli, Vienna.

" PABIS, September 14, 1858.

" Since my return here I have been devoting my
whole time to the establishment of agencies for the
company abroad and in France, as well as of schedul-
ing the private subscriptions which have been sent to
me, and which already reach £3,200,000. The
adversaries of the enterprise, our faithful allies over
the water, have already lost their two first campaigns
as to the impossibility of making the canal and the
hostilities of the Porte. All their efforts are now
directed to deterring their compatriots from sub-
scribing to it, because, in their innate pride and
insular ignorance, they believe that their example will
prevent other nations from investing money in it. We
are now in course of destroying their last illusions.

" The Emperor is in favour of subordinating the
political question to the organisation of the company,
which will be strong enough to withstand opposition,
and which the Continental governments will be in a
position to support if needful. This seems to me
very prudent, and is quite in keeping with my view
as to government intervention, which should follow
if the necessity for it arises, and not precede the
execution of a commercial and industrial enterprise.

" The main thing is that I am assured that my

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 119

government will support me should I require such
support, and even now, while the ambassador at Con-
stantinople has been instructed to advise the Porte in
favour of the enterprise, Count Walewski informed
Fuad Pasha, previous to his departure for London, that
the Emperor took particular interest in the Suez Canal,
and was anxious to see the Sultan give a token of initia-
tive and independence in the matter, and that the course
which Turkey had so far pursued in the matter was, in
fact, felt by France to be ground for just complaint."

To M. de Regny, Interim Agent in Egypt.

"PAKis, January 1, 1859.

" The constitution of the financial company, which
will carry out the making of the Suez Canal, has
brought the year 1858 to a very satisfactory close, but
we must be prepared for a struggle even more severe
than any of those which have gone before, for the
hostility of the English Government seems to have
been exacerbated by the success of our subscription.
Our adversaries are beginning to reproach me with
having composed the administration exclusively of
relatives and friends, to the exclusion of great finan-
ciers, but my reply to this is that one gets on best in
business with friends and not with enemies, and that
to fight these latter I could not well select my col-
leagues to suit their convenience.

" Then, again, they are trying to undermine the
confidence of my supporters by dwelling upon the

iio RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

risky character of a company which has not got that
wonderful firman which England alone prevents being
issued, and by asserting that the company is irre-
gular in its constitution because Great Britain and
other countries are not among the subscribers.

" My report to the Viceroy, dated December 31st,
1858, has given him a full account of the board meet-
ings held since the constitution of the company was
duly declared. His Highness having wished that the
French investments should not much exceed one-half
of the whole, in order that the company might, so far
as possible, maintain its universal character, we have
fixed the total number of shares as follows : —

Name of Country. Number of Shares.

France 207,111

Ottoman Empire (inclusive of the Viceroy's

personal investment) ..... 96,517

Spain 4,046

Holland 2,615

Tunis . 1,714

Piedmont . 1,353

Switzerland 460

Belgium 324

Tuscany 176

Naples 97

Home ........ 54

Prussia 15

Denmark ....... 7

Portugal ....... 5

Sums held in reserve for the subscriptions from
Austria, Great Britain, Kussia, and the Uni-
ted States, which the Viceroy authorizes me

to guarantee for him should they not be taken 85, 506

Total number of Shares forming the capital of

the Company 400,000

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 121

"Thus it is made very clear that I have not at-
tempted to monopolise for France and Egypt the
merits of the subscription which, despite all that may
be said or done, will not fail to be universal in its
results.

"My last news from England is to the effect that
we shall get no money from there. The utterances of
Lord Palmerston and Stephenson, the engineer, have
told. But as we shall go forward, despite the policy
of our dear allies, I am not sorry to succeed with-
out their financial assistance, and notwithstanding
their hostility, just to take down a little of their
insular presumption, accustomed as they are to regard
everything impossible which has not their support.

"I forward you the summary remarks of the
engineers of the International Commission to the
declarations of Mr. Stephenson. "With regard to those
of Lord Palmerston, totally devoid of reason as they
are, his successors will persevere in the same hostile
course. I know, through my friends in the foreign
corps diplomatique at Paris, that since the success of
our subscription the English Cabinet has made re-
doubled efforts to create difficulties for us with other
Powers.

"Thus, for instance, the Marquis de Villamarina,
Sardinian Minister in Paris, has been asked by the
English ambassador to inform Count Cavour that the
English Government was still very opposed to the
canal, and that, as matters stood between England

VOL. II. K

izz RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

and Piedmont, it would be very detrimental to the
future of the latter state if it compromised itself by
running counter to English policy.

" I know, too, through Italian friends, that the
same intimation was made direct to Count Cavour
through the British agent at Turin.

" According to a letter from New York, I must not
now count upon any shares being taken in the United
States. It will probably be the same in Eussia, owing
to the financial embarrassment of that country.

" With regard to Austria, the information sent by
Bruck and Eevoltella, continues to be favourable,
despite the death of our. good and trusty friend
Kegrelli. I propose to visit Vienna and Trieste on
my way to Egypt next month."

M. de Regny to M. de Lesseps.

" ALEXANDRIA, January 2, 1859.

" I send you a brief account of an interview which
has just taken place between the English consul in
Egypt and the Viceroy. The importance of this in-
terview cannot be exaggerated, for just when an
effort is being made to get the world to believe that
he is unfavourably disposed towards the enterprise, he
replied with remarkable firmness to the English agent
that this was his work, and that he was resolved to
go on with it, as the Hatti-Sherif of 1841 unquestion-
ably gives him the right to do. "We shall see whether
the action of the consul is countenanced by his

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 123

government. It is entirely out of character with the
principles of humanity and commerce, of which the
English claim to be the principal exponents.

" The facts are as under. Mr. Green went to Cairo
on December llth, and pointed out to the Viceroy that
by having granted M. de Lesseps the concession he
would find himself exposed to much annoyance, and
that M. de Lesseps, upon the strength of this declared
that he had your mandate, and had constituted a
company. The consul added that no doubt his High-
ness would repudiate this statement as to your having
his mandate.

" Said's reply was : ' People are mistaken in Europe
if they attribute the piercing of the isthmus to M. de
Lesseps alone, for I am the promoter of it. M. de
Lesseps has merely carried out my instructions. You
will ask me perhaps what my motive has been, and
I will tell you that it has been to bring honour on
my name and serve at the same time the interests of
the Ottoman Empire. I have acquired by this means
the sympathies of all the nations of Europe. You
are aware that most of the great Powers are interested
in the making of the canal.' The consul replied :
4 May I point out to your Highness that if it has been
approved of by France and other Powers, it has been
strongly opposed by the English Government as
contrary to its interests.' The Viceroy said that he
was resolved to do all he could to accelerate a work
which was generally desired, and gave Mr. Green

K2

124 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

permission to report their conversation to his govern-
ment.

" The Viceroy was all the more justified in making
this outspoken reply to the irregular step taken by
Mr. Green, seeing that he has just completed for the
benefit of England the railway from Alexandria to
Suez. He deserved some better return for the out-
lays he has made in English factories and workshops,
notably in those of Stephenson, and for the rapidity
with which the works were carried out."

To the Due d'Albufera, Vice- President of the Suez
Canal Company.

11 VIENNA, February 21, 1859.

" I have already had a long conversation with
Baron de Bruck and his colleagues in the Ministry.
We are quite agreed as to the subscription for shares
being announced in all the towns of the empire, under
the patronage of government. Each country has its
usages, and it appears that here a public appeal for
funds would not answer. I am going to-morrow to
Trieste, where deputations are to wait on me, and
where I shall arrange with M. de Eevoltella for realis-
ing the Austrian subscription for shares.

" The venerable Prince Metternich greeted me, as
was his wont, with extreme good nature, and compli-
mented me upon my ' manipulation de 1'entreprise de
Suez,' to use his own words, adding that if we went on
steadily and prudently, the irresistible force of truth

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 125

made our success certain. I am going to jot down
our conversation, which was a very interesting one,
in iny journal."

To the same.

" ALEXANDRIA, March 7, 1859.

" I have presented the deputation from our board
to the Viceroy, and handed him the declaration, of
which I enclose you a copy. After the customary
compliments, I had a private audience with the Vice-
roy, being anxious to see what impression the recent
visit of the English consul had produced upon his
mind. I found him as kind as ever for me, and
thoroughly resolved to pursue, or perhaps rather to let
me pursue, the enterprise of the canal. He confirmed
the accuracy of the report of the interview sent us by
M. de Kegny, but added that the consul had at the
same time thanked him for the completion of the rail-
way, which, to use the expression contained in a
letter of congratulation from the P. and 0. Company,
4 so happily realises to the advantage of England the
wished-for communication between the Mediterranean
and the Eed Sea.' The Viceroy afterwards asked the
French Consul-General whether he would, if neces-
sary, support the operations of the canal company ?
M. Sabatier replied that he had no instructions, but
would apply for them if required. The Viceroy's
secretary then went to see M. Sabatier, and offici-
ally requested him to inform his government of the
step which had been taken by his English colleague,

126 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

and of the embarrassment which he felt in conse-
quence of this persistent pestering. M. Sabatier has
asked for instructions by this post, but in the mean-
while has not thought it right to give the Viceroy
any advice, for which I do not blame him, consider-
ing that I, though in no official position like him,
have not thought it right to ask his Highness to
intervene, no ostensible act of hostility against the
company having yet been committed.

"The Viceroy informed the Austrian consul and
myself that no difficulty had been raised ly the Porte, to
which he was about to report what had occurred, but
that the opposition came entirely from the English
agent. At the same time, I am about to proceed, by
arrangement with the Viceroy, to carry out the deci-
sions of the board so far as concerns the continuation
of the preparatory survey, works which would in any
case have had to be done first of all.

" The other questions are settled in principle, but
we must, of course, wait to see what attitude the
French consul will be ordered to assume."

To M. Damas-Hinard, Private Secretary to the
Empress of the French, Bayonne.

"LA CHENAIE, October 7, 1859.
" Our ambassador at Eome writes : —
" ' I am following with intense interest the grand
enterprise to which you are so patriotically devoting
your persevering efforts, and I sincerely trust you

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 127

will succeed. I know of no more national or useful
work than yours.'

" This will give an idea of what our diplomatists
think of the Suez Canal. It may be added that the
Due de Gramont, in writing thus, is the mouthpiece
of the Koman Court, and the whole of the Catholic
clergy is deeply interested in the execution of the
work. Only the other day, the Bishop of Orleans, in
a pastoral letter, expressed his most ardent wishes for
its success.

" The army has, with its usual spirit, taken up our
enterprise, and many officers of all ranks are among
our shareholders.

"The intervention of the Emperor, which now
becomes a question of life and death for us, will cer-
tainly increase his popularity at home and his influ-
ence abroad. All the governments are ready to
support him against the isolated opposition of the
antiquated policy of England. This homage rendered
to the Emperor's political ascendency reminds one of
that paid to Charles VIII. when a battle was about to
be fought. The nobility opened their ranks, and,
leaving him the foremost place, said : i To your
.Majesty be left the honour of making the first thrust
with your lance.'

" I said at the last meeting of our board that the
Empress had been our guardian angel, and that she
would be for the union of the two seas what Isabella,
the Catholic, was for the discovery of America. We

128 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

have therefore chosen the 15th of November, the
feast of St. Eug6nie, for our first general meeting of
shareholders."

To the same.

" LA CHENAIE, October 18, 1859.

" I learn that the Porte, yielding to the pressure
of the English ambassador, has despatched Muktar
Bey, the Minister of Finance, to advise the Vice-
roy as to what course he should pursue in regard
to the Suez Canal. If I am rightly informed, his in-
structions are to discourage rather than stimulate the
Viceroy. You will observe that our adversaries, whose
motive is easily guessed at, select the time when the
general meeting of shareholders has been announced
as about to be held, to carry out a threat which will,
as they hope, have the effect of shaking the confidence
of our friends and create us fresh difficulties. My
letters from Alexandria tell me, in fact, that our
adversaries, advised beforehand of Muktar Bey's
mission, do not make any secret of their belief that
it is all over with the canal, with which the Imperial
Government will not have any thing to do, leaving the field
free to the opposition of the English agents.

" As her Majesty the Empress will readily see the
significance and gravity of these fresh complications,
I shall be very much obliged if you will submit this
letter to her. She will see how indispensable to me
just now is the support she has already so freely
given me."

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 129

To Mr. D. A. Lange, London.

" LA CHENAIE, October 15, 1859.

" The Isthme de Suez newspaper will give full par-
ticulars about the mission of Muktar Bey to Egypt.
It is due, beyond all doubt, to the intervention of
Sir H. Bulwer, and I have information to that effect,
which comes from the fountain-head. The French
ambassador at first remonstrated against this mission
as hostile to the Suez Canal, but the action of the
English ambassador was of such a character that a
grave conflict might have ensued; so the French
ambassador, in compliance with his general instruc-
tions, which are to avoid anything of the kind, left
the field free to his English colleague. You may rely
upon this information, and the occurrence is a for-
tunate one for us, as no doubt that was what the
Emperor was waiting for, to inform Lord Cowley that
he intended to support us, and that the demands of
the company must be complied with. In fact, a des-
patch to this effect has been sent to our ambassador
in London, requesting him to communicate it to your
government.

"I regard our cause as won, seeing that the
Emperor takes it under his protection."

To M. de Ruyssenaers, Alexandria.

"PARIS, October 24, 1859.

" I am pleased to inform you that we were received
by the Emperor at St. Cloud yesterday. MM. Elie de

130 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Beaumont and Baron C. Dupin, our honorary presi-
dents, joined us, and we were most kindly greeted
by the Emperor, who was aware of the object of our
visit, and who, speaking to me, said, ' How is it, M.
de Lesseps, that so many people are against your
enterprise ? ' To which I replied at once, ' Your
Majesty, it is because they think you will not stand
by us.' The Emperor, twisting the tips of his mous-
tache with his fingers, as he is in the way of doing
when he is thinking of what he shall say, observed,
after a brief silence, ' Well, do not be uneasy. You
may count upon my assistance and protection.'

" Speaking of the resistance of England, and re-
ferring to a recent reply of the London Cabinet,
which he called a i startling ' one (raide), he added,
' It is a gust of wind. We must take in sail.7

" We then asked him to authorise us to announce
to our shareholders that as negotiations were in pro-
gress the general meeting would be adjourned, as other-
wise we should be obliged to refund them their money.
He assented to this, and also to our letting it be
known in Egypt that he had already given his
Minister of Foreign Affairs orders that our rights and
operations were to be upheld. We thanked him for
it, but we complained of the conduct of the French
Consul- General in Egypt, who had entirely failed to
protect our interests, and handed a written memoran-
dum in support of our statement. Thinking it time
to leave, I made a sign to my colleagues, and finally

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 131

observed that I thought it desirable that I should go to
Constantinople and Alexandria, to which the Emperor
replied, ' It is very important that you should do so.'

"My colleagues then retired, but having remarked
that the Emperor wished to speak to us, the Due
d' Albufera and myself remained behind. The Emperor
then said to me in a very friendly tone, ' What do
you think we should do now ? ' I replied, * Your
Majesty, I think it would be wise to recall the French
Consul-Gen eral, who, being a man of great capacity,
could be sent to some other post.' ' Well,' remarked
the Emperor, ' if that is all, it is easily done. You
can tell Walewski so.'

" I lost not a moment in writing to Count Walew-
ski, to tell him what had passed, and I ended my
letter by saying : —

" i The practical result of this audience seems to be
that, while reserving the political question, which can
be left for diplomatic settlement, M. Thouvenel should
be instructed to ask the new Grand Vizier (who is, I
believe, favourable to the enterprise) for a letter to
the Viceroy, authorising him to continue the pre-
paratory works as defined in my letter from Corfu on
the 3rd of March to the Grand Vizier, and, secondly,
that M. Sabatier's services should be utilised any-
where else than in Egypt.'

"It is very fortunate that I happened to be in
France, and not in Egypt, during the mission of
Muktar Bey, which has occasioned you so much

132 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

annoyance, and in connection with which you have
given so many proofs of your tact and devotion to the
interests of the company."

To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris.

11 CONSTANTINOPLE, November 23, 1859.
" Our minister was well advised in sending me
here, for though at first Thouvenel was rather alarmed,
for fear that some complication should arise in the
midst of his Montenegrin negotiations, I regard my
stay at Constantinople as being most opportune just
now. I should add that, owing to bad weather, the
letters which ought to have arrived a week before had
only just been delivered when I came, so that Thou-
venel had scarcely had time to read them, and feared
that it would be very difficult to bring about a sudden
change of front. But this also I regard as a fortunate
circumstance, and, moreover, we soon got on capitally.
But he must be well backed up from Paris. Don't let
them be afraid of the struggle with Sir Henry Bul-
wer, who, though a personal friend of mine, thinks it
his duty as a good Englishman to serve his govern-
ment, right or wrong, for which I cannot blame him.
He was confined to his bed with fever when I arrived,
but my presence had the effect of a good dose of
quinine on him, for he was busy at work the next
morning. His method of proceeding is to show the
Turks letters from London, in which are described
imaginary conversations between Lord Cowley and

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 133

Count Walewski in Paris, according to which the
latter had promised England not to support the canal
scheme, and this subsequent to the Muktar Bey mission.
There cannot be a word of truth in this, which is a
very old dodge. The dragomans of the English
Embassy are instructed to alarm the ministers of the
Porte by telling them that their assent to the can:il
may give rise to a war between France and England,
which, whatever its result, would be fatal to Turkey.
I endeavour to make them see that, on the contrary,
if the Porte hesitated to come to a decision there
would be far more danger of France and England
being brought into conflict.

" There is another point to which I would also fain
draw Count Walewski's attention. "When the French
ambassador here opens the attack, and is seconded, as
he will be, by the representatives of Austria, Eussia,
&c., it is essential that all our forces should be con-
centrated on the one point we are endeavouring to
attain, and that all other questions should be deferred.

" The dragomans of the English Embassy tell the
Porte that Lord John EusselPs instructions betoken
quite as much hostility to the canal as those of pre-
ceding foreign secretaries."

To the same.

"CONSTANTINOPLE, November 30, 1859.
" I receive a letter from Paris in which I am told:
'Your enemies — and you must not think that you have

i34 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

not plenty of all sorts — have endeavoured to compromise
you in high places with reference to your alleged
political opinions. There has been a talk of intimacies,
relationships, and even affiliations.'

" I confess that accusations of this kind do not
trouble me much, but, on the contrary, I am rather
pleased to find that those who have an interest in in-
juring one who has never done an injury to any man,
are obliged to have recourse to such weapons of the
imagination. For my official career for the last thirty-
four years, and my private life, of which an august
personage happens to know a good deal, put me be-
yond the reach of such wretched calumnies.

"My whole life has been spent in the service of my
country, nor have I ever meddled in home politics.
I have never once set my foot, even out of curiosity,
in a public political meeting of any kind. During my
thirty years' consecutive employment abroad I was
only four times on leave in Paris, and I was not pre-
sent at the revolutions of 1830 or 1848. Put out of
active employment, upon my own demand, in 1849,
and receiving no pay or pension, I devoted myself
entirely to my family, and succeeded in making good
the inroads upon my small fortune caused by the
expenses of my latest missions abroad.

" Sustaining in 1854 a very severe domestic afflic-
tion,* I set myself to work upon a project which theo-
retically had engaged my attention for many years.

* Note of the Translator. — M. de Lesseps is referring to the
death of his first wife.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 135

Since then there has been no secret about a single one
of my actions, and there is nothing in my sayings,
writings, or doings, to justify an attack which I should
not condescend to notice, but that I was afraid of its
just now being detrimental to the success of our enter-
prise. Eead this to Count Walewski, and communi-
cate it, if you think fit, to M. Damas Hinard, for the
Empress. She knows that though I did not vote for
the empire, I am no factionist, and that though I
am a lover of liberty, I am not one of those who would
seek to overthrow the order of things which my
country has raised up."

To M. Ruyssenaers, Alexandria.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, December 7, 1859.

" After several ministerial councils, which resulted
in considerable discussion owing to the innumerable
steps taken by Sir Henry Bulwer, the Porte agreed to
the demand made by the French ambassador. That
is to say, a reference will be made to the Powers to
cover the political responsibility of Turkey in regard
to the canal, and to settle the international questions
arising out of it. All that now remains is to decide
in what form the reference shall be made. I of course
leave M. Thouvenel to take action in his own way,
and have not made any move personally. Sir H.
Bulwer sees so clearly that this appeal would put
an end to all possibility of further resistance that
he is moving heaven and earth to prevent it being
made.

136 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

"If all terminates as I hope, I shall hand to the
heads of each Legation a memorandum which I have
prepared with confirmatory documents appended."

To Chevalier Revoltella, Trieste.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, December 10, 1859.
" There haye been two councils within the last three
days, and there will be another to-morrow. The Porte
is still hesitating, for Sir H. Bulwer has held out
threats of war, but we have made the Turkish ministers
understand that this is only bluster, and that he would
look very foolish if asked to put this in writing."

To M. Ruyssenaers, Alexandria.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, December 24, 1859.

"M. Thouvenel has informed me that at last the
agreed reference to the Powers has been drawn up,
after sixteen ministerial councils. This reference, the
terms of which were so long discussed, has been commu-
nicated to M. Thouvenel, and by him sent on to Paris.

" The Sultan sent, the day before yesterday, for the
Grand Vizier, as well as for Fuad Pasha, the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, to congratulate them upon their
conduct of the negotiations.

" Yesterday afternoon, we were thunderstruck to
hear that the Grand Yizier, Kuprisly Pasha, had been
dismissed, and I was afraid at first that there had been
a change of front in Turkish policy. But I was at

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 137

once reassured upon hearing of the nomination of
Kuchdi Pasha, whom I lost no time in going to see,
and who appeared most friendly.

To the Dae d'Albufera, Paris.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, December 28, 1859.

" The change of Grand Yiziers has not in any way
affected the situation as I described it to you in my
previous letters. The Sultan gave his full approval
to what had been done by the ex-Grand Yizier, so I
leave to-morrow for Alexandria, where I shall not
remain long, as all I want to do there is to see the
Viceroy.

"M. Thouvenel is anxious that I should get to
Paris as quickly as possible."

To the same.

"ON THE NILE, BETWEEN MONFALOUT AND SIOUT,

"January 6, 1860.

"The Viceroy was waiting for me at Monfalout
previous to going up the river to Siout. We had a
very interesting conversation, and I can assure you
that we are perfectly agreed. He is very anxious
that we should, without making any fuss about it, at
once proceed to the setting up of our dredging ap-
paratus, to the excavating of our service trench
(rigole de service) as far as Lake Timsah, and to the
preliminary works in the inner fort.

"He is very satisfied with the result arrived at at

VOL. II. L

158 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Constantinople, without his rights having been in-
fringed upon or called in question, and he admits that
his rights are our rights.

"I explained to him how his running account
stands, and left him a copy of it to examine.

"The Yiceroy assured me in the most gracious
manner that at no time had his confidence in me ever
been the least shaken, and that he was sure he could
say the same of me. He repeated what he had
already said at our last interview, that we can under-
stand each other thoroughly even when parted. He
is very pleased that the Trench consul has been
changed. After our conversation we went up to
Siout, each on our separate steamer, and he told me
that he would not hear of my leaving."

To M. Ruyssenaers, Alexandria.

"ALEXANDRIA, January 11, 1860.

u In handing the Yiceroy his account with the
company, which he found correct, I pointed out to
him that his Treasury had not included in its ad-
vances several large sums which his Highness declined
to receive, and I thanked him on behalf of the share-
holders. These sums related to the surveys made
several years ago, the salaries of all the engineers
placed at our disposal, the cost of the International
Commission during its journey through the isthmus,
and many other items."

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 139
To His Highness the Viceroy of Egypt.

"PARIS, January 26, 1860.

" I arrived here four days ago, and I hasten to
send to your Highness, as promised, a copy of the
communication made to the French Minister of
Foreign Affairs by the Turkish Ambassador. There
is no need for me to tell your Highness that this note,
which is symptomatic of how the Porto s ways to and
fro between France and England, does not effect any
precise settlement. It is no more than a mere official
subterfuge, and it, in short, leaves to time and to the
course of events to bring about a definite arrange-
ment which the Porte has not ventured to make.
This is a political burial of the question which enables
us to act and to force on the solution afterwards.
This is what the Spaniards call cubrir el espediente
(saving the appearances).

u The Emperor has received M. Beclard, the suc-
cessor of M. Sabatier, and has specially commended to
him the interests of the company.

"In agreement with M. Thouvenel, I have ob-
tained from the committee the vote of the resolution
of which I enclose a copy, so that your Highness may
not be in any way troubled by inquiries with regard
to the works we are executing for the creation of
Port Said and of the inland fort at Timsah.

"I have seen King Jerome and his son Prince
Kapoleon and the Ministers, but I have waited until

L 2

i4o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

fully informed on all points before asking for an
audience of the Emperor, which I shall do to-day or
to-morrow. I send your Highness the model of an
apparatus for letting the captains of ships know when
the lighthouse at Port Said is lighted. This light-
house will be very useful for vessels plying between
the coasts of Egypt and Syria."

To the same.

'•'PARIS, May 16, 1860.

" I have the honour to inform your Highness that
I shall leave Marseilles on the 18th to lay before you
the resolutions passed at the general meeting of
May 15th, and to point out to you the satisfactory
results which this meeting will have upon the realisa-
tion of our enterprise."

To His Excellency Kcenig Bey, Secretary to the
Viceroy.

" ALEXANDRIA, June 27, 1860.

" I send you a letter from Constantinople, which
please read to the Viceroy, whom I shall not see to-
day. The best answer we can make to our adver-
saries is the arrangement we have concluded with
Eagheb Pasha, which, far from being a cause of
financial embarrassment, will strengthen the Vice-
roy's credit.

"This letter, dated June 10th, is as follows: —
" ' The mot cPordre of the English Embassy, in

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 141

public and in society, with reference to the Suez
Canal, is this: "As M. de Lesseps and his share-
holders are indifferent to the ruinous impossibility of
the work, which The Times has pointed out, so much
the worse for them. It is not England's business to
preserve them from the consequences of their own
folly. It would be absurd to oppose the execution of
a thing which is not possible; and if, by dint of
money expenditure and by ruining two or three
generations of shareholders the canal is made, so
much the better for England — which will derive more
benefit from it than anyone else — and for the in-
tegrity of the Ottoman Empire, from which Egypt,
rendered inviolable by the universal interests attached
to the canal itself, will be in no risk of being
separated."

" Is this a more or less honourable mode of beating
a retreat, or is it not rather, as I believe, an expe-
dient for putting the French Embassy to sleep, and
for making a redoubled attack against the Viceroy ?
It is represented that he has wasted and ruined the
finances of Egypt, and that it is desirable to replace
him. Not being able to attack the canal outright, an
endeavour is being made to discredit the financial
position of the Viceroy with respect to the work,
which will, however, cost him much less than the
railway to Suez. Be this as it may, I know that the
Embassy is upon its guard, and that despite the good
will for Sir Henry Bulwer with which Turks said to

i42 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

be in the confidence of the Viceroy are credited,
nothing will be done either against his Highness or
yourself. It is always well, however, to keep one's
weather eye open.

"M. de Lavalette seems very easy in his mind, and
I am bound to believe that he has his reasons for this.
One thing certain is that he is determined, if neces-
sary, to display great zeal in an affair in which so
many legitimate interests are involved."

To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris.

" ALEXANDRIA, December 28, 1860.

u It may interest the Minister of Foreign Affairs
to hear something about our relations with Abyssinia,
a country which, now so far off, will, when the Suez
Canal is open, be the nearest to Europe of all those
on the east coast of Africa. Our consul at Massowah
transmitted me a letter from the King of Abyssinia,
which has already been published;* but I enclose
you the translation of a second letter from him, in
reply to what I wrote in answer to his first letter : —

Second Letter from King Nikas Negoussie to
M. Ferd. de Lesseps.

" i Peace be with you !

" ' Your letter duly reached me, and I thank you

* Note of the Translator. — This letter is included in the chapter
on "Abyssinia." See Chap. XI.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 143

for the good wishes you express towards me and for
the prosperity of my people. I am convinced that,
despite my earnest efforts to remove from my country
the barbarous customs introduced into Abyssinia
during the last few centuries, I shall never succeed
in entirely changing the ideas of the people, and
regenerating them until European genius, uniting the
waters of the Bed Sea and the Mediterranean, has
opened our country to European commerce and Chris-
tian civilisation.

"'When, by the grace and will of God, I have
brought all the rebels into subjection, and established
my kingdom upon a more solid basis, I shall send my
ambassadors to all the Christian kings of Europe, and I
shall say to them: " My brothers, I am like you a servi-
tor and a son of Jesus Christ. Beceive me, therefore,
among you and enter into relations with me. Then
the men of Europe will come among us, they will
teach us your arts, and Abyssinia will become what
it was before. If you are my friends, and if you desire
the good of humanity, you will doubtless aid me in this
work."

" ' In order that my acts should correspond to my
words, I have forbidden the mutilation of the killed
or wounded in battle ; I have prohibited the slave
trade, and this odious traffic is now suppressed in the
Tigre*, Semen, and all the subject provinces upon the
coast of the Bed Sea.

" * Permit me to repeat to you in conclusion that

i44 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

you can count upon me for anything which is calcu-
lated to advance the work of the canal.
" i May the good Lord keep you.' '

" ' DENEAT AXOUM, 8 Lasoli, 1852.'

" I beg you also to hand to Count "Walewski,
together with my correspondence with King Nikas,
my Abrege de VHistoire d'Abyssime as likely to be
useful for purposes of reference in the political rela-
tions which will certainly follow the opening of the
Suez Canal to navigation between Europe and the
east coast of Africa."*

My Journal.

" llth, 18th, 19*7i, 20*7t January, 1863.
" Having left Ismailia on horseback in order to
reach Kantara more quickly than I could by water, I
cross the desert, followed by my faithful Hassan, the
night being dark and there being nothing but the
north star to guide us. After two hours' repose, I
am awoke by a courier, and on opening the despatch
I find that Mohammed Said, who was very ill when
he reached Alexandria, is in a very critical state, and
that if I wish to see him again there is not a
moment to be lost. I have a horse saddled, and,
instead of taking the desert route, I determined to

* King Nikas's intentions were not carried into effect, for he was
treacherously betrayed to the Pretender Theodoros, who had him
cruelly put to death, and governed Abyssinia until his barbarity
to foreigners led to the English expedition, under Lord Napier, the
capture of Magdala, and his suicide.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 145

follow the banks of the canal and gain time. There
are several solutions of continuity, but my horse gets
me out of all the difficulties, and I arrive at Ismailia
at break of day. I had telegraphed in advance to
have a bark got ready, with two dromedaries to
draw it along the banks, but just as I reached Tel-el-
Kebir, I meet another bark which was bringing up
Jules Yoisin, who had been sent by M. Guichard,
director of our domains at Ouady, to tell me that the
Viceroy had died on the morning of the 18th. I am
grieved to the heart, not on account of my enterprise,
in which I have the most serene confidence, despite
all the difficulties which may arise, but because of the
cruel separation from a faithful friend who for more
than a quarter of a mitury had given me so many
proofs of affection and confidence. As I travel on to
Alexandria, I go over in my mind all the circum-
stances connected with our youthful friendship, his
careless and easy life as a young man, and his bene-
ficent reign. Before seeking a little repose I ask
permission from the noble and estimable princess,
his widow, to allow me to enter the family mosque in
which his body had just been lodged. I remain there
an hour quite alone, with my head resting upon the
dead man's turban. His servitors, whom I afterwards
question, inform me that towards the close of his illness
their master used a stick which I had given him
while we were on an excursion together, and that he
had it at his side when he died. I have every search

i46 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

made to discover this relic, but it is nowhere to be
found. I have a description of it given to the police,
who eventually discover it in the hands of an Arab as
he walked along the street. It was restored to me,
and the history of this interesting souvenir is as
follows : — One day Mohammed Pasha, upon my return
from England, showed me two sticks, the one which
I had given him and one which was a present from an
English admiral, and said : * You sometimes mention
the canal business to me in the presence of persons
who might repeat our conversation at an inconvenient
moment. To obviate this, whenever you come to see
me and you notice that I have the English stick, you
will remember that nothing is to be said about the
canal ; but you can say as much as you like when you
see that I have your stick.'

" After remaining three days at Alexandria, and
giving time for the official congratulations offered to
Mohammed's successor to be got over, I start for
Cairo, where the new Viceroy, far from being offended,
expressed himself much pleased at the regret which I
expressed and felt, and of his own accord assured me
that he would treat the widow, son, and household of
his predecessor as if they belonged to his own family."

To the Due d'Albufera, Parts.

"CAIRO, January 24, 1863.

" Summoned by telegraph when the Viceroy was
dying, I reached Alexandria from Kantara in twenty

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 147

hours, but too late to close the eyes of one who had
ever been for me a firm and fast friend. The new
Viceroy, Ismail Pasha, has been pleased to give me
his assurance of goodwill towards our enterprise, as I
telegraphed to you ; and I am now, after having had a
long and confidential conversation with him, in a
position to assure you that we may feel quite at ease
both as regards the progress of our works and the
regular payment of the sums for which the Egyptian
Government has made itself responsible. Ismail
Pasha is opposed to the idea of a loan, if it can
possibly be avoided, and he is anxious, if possible,
to have all the instalments paid in succession, so as to
enable the company to meet all its expenses without
having any need to make a further call upon its
shareholders until the whole debt of the Egyptian
Treasury has been paid off. We intend to draw up a
plain agreement to this effect on the Viceroy's return
from Constantinople, where he is about to go to
receive his investiture from the Sultan. Until then it
is easy to understand that Ismail Pasha cannot do more
than let things remain in the state in which they were
left by his predecessor, but I am assured by him and
his intimate friends that he understands how important
it is for the glory of his reign to bring the enterprise
of the Suez Canal to a successful conclusion.

" The Due de Brabant, who has returned from an
excursion in Upper Egypt, has expressed to me his
wish to visit our works in detail, and I am starting

148 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

with him this morning, the Yiceroy having ordered a
special train for us from Cairo to Samanoud and a
steamer from Samanoud to Damietta. I have tele-
graphed to M. Yoisin to meet us, for before I knew
of the Due de Brabant's proposed visit we had
arranged to inspect our works together.

" The Yiceroy will return from Constantinople in
about three weeks, and we shall then make our finan-
cial arrangements previous to my starting for France,
and he has repeated to me several times, i I don't
wish you to reach Paris until the company is com-
pletely satisfied.' He made a similar declaration to
our consul, and also told him that he intended to
effect the payment of his shares in such a way as to
obviate any necessity for making a fresh call upon the
French shareholders.

" His Highness informed me a few days ago that he
had steamers to bring contingents of workmen from
Upper and Middle Egypt for the month of Eamaden,
during which period there is not, for this once, to be
any suspension of labour. It was very desirable that
such should be the case, as an interruption of the
work would certainly have been misinterpreted, and
this the Yiceroy saw.

"These facts confirm, therefore, the favourable dis-
positions which his Highness manifested from the
first, and our affairs in Egypt are going on as well as
possible."

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 149
To the same.

"ALEXANDRIA, March 10, 1863.

al took care to be at Alexandria upon the return
of the Viceroy from Constantinople, and I was one of
the first to see him. He told me in confidence all that
had occurred during his visit to the Sultan, as you
will learn from my brother Theodore, whom I have
requested to communicate them to you before inform-
ing ]\I. Drouyn de Lhuys of them.

"The Viceroy's voyage has produced the best pos-
sible results for us, and, to use his own words, he said
to me, < If you had been Viceroy of Egypt as well
as president of your company, you could not have
done better in the interests of the Suez Canal
scheme.'

"There need, therefore, be no fear now as to the
rapid progress of our works, and the discharge of the
debt due from the Egyptian Treasury. The Viceroy
started yesterday for Cairo, after receiving the new
French Consul-General, my old friend M. Tastu, who
will do all he can for us, though we must not forget
the services rendered us by M. de Beauval."

To Count Th. de Lesseps, Paris.

11 CAIRO, Aitsjust 28, 1863.

" I have just received from an intimate and devoted
friend in Paris the following letter : —

" ' I think it right to let you know what I have

1 50 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

just heard, and you will be the best judge as to what
it is worth. I can see no harm in letting you know
this, for if there was the slightest foundation for it, it
would be very unfortunate if you were not fore-
warned. The information was given to me on the
express condition that I should not disclose to you
the source from which it came. It appears that a head
engineer of the Ponts-et-Chause'es was sent to Egypt
by a statesman now in power, with the mission to
inspect the works on the isthmus, and address him a
report upon the results of his inspection. I am told
that this person expressed himself very unfavourably
as to what he had seen in the course of his visit, and
that he was very severe upon your engineers. It is
considered certain that his report will be very hostile,
and that he will draw the conclusion that the affair
cannot possibly be carried through under present con-
ditions. It is anticipated that this report will be
handed to the statesman in question, and that he will
submit it direct to the Emperor. Armed with this
report, the person who presents it will endeavour to
persuade the Emperor that the affair is being badly
managed, that the capital of the shareholders is in
danger, and that the honour and success of the enter-
prise is at stake ; while, by way of fresh arguments
to use with the Empress, from whom more difficulty
is anticipated than from the Emperor, an effort will
be made to alarm her and to persuade her that, in
your interest, it is desirable to save you from the diffi-

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 151

culties which you are heaping up for yourself. The
object is to bring about the liquidation of the present
company, and substitute for it another which is
already in course of formation. There is some talk,
in addition, of another company composed of large
bankers.'

" If I were in Paris my first step would be to show
the statesman in question the letter I had received.
I should ask him to request the engineer if he had
made any observations more or less favourable to the
course of our works, which had been directed by his
colleagues of the Ponts-et-Chaussees, to communicate
these observations, so that we might have them con-
trolled and verified by four of the most distinguished
of his colleagues, MM. Tostain and Eenaud, in-
spectors-general, and the engineers MM. Pascal and
de Fourcy, who are just coming out to Egypt.

" With regard to the inheritance of the Suez Canal,
it is not upon the point of being divided ; we have
given sufficient proofs of being alive, and we are,
thank God, in pretty good health. Our first steps
were attended with difficulties, and our childhood was
a stormy one, but we have reached the age of man-
hood. We intend to prove that, if we have been able
to constitute ourselves financially, without the assist-
ance of great capitalists, so, with the help of able
engineers, we shall be able to complete our work,
without delivering ourselves to great speculators, who
would not be sorry to absorb a part of our share-

iS 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

holders' money. We have laboured and sown ; we
intend to reap the harvest.

" These fresh intrigues, if they really exist, will
share the fate of the financial and political intrigues
which have preceded them.

" I tell you what I think, and must leave you to
decide as to whether it is expedient to inform the
Empress of the matter."

To His Highness Prince Ismail, Viceroy of Egypt
and Ethiopia.

" CAIRO, September 1, 1863.

" Monseigneur, — A letter from the Grand Vizier
was addressed to your Highness in the early part of
August with reference to the Suez Canal.

" The French Embassy at Constantinople having
succeeded in obtaining a copy of this letter, and com-
municated it to me, I have lost no time in drawing
out a memorandum on the subject, in which I venture
to call your close attention. I may at once say that I
am of the same opinion as the French Government,
which has never, it is true, had occasion to take any
initiative in regard to the Suez Canal, and which has
rightly refused to make a political question of it, but
which is firmly resolved to uphold, together with
your rights, those of the company in which French
capital has been legitimately invested.

" It will be for the representative of the Emperor
at your Highness's Court to give you, with more

THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 153

authority than myself, the same assurances, and to
encourage him, upon the other hand, not to permit
any interference in the internal administration of
Egypt contrary to the arrangement of 1841, which
constituted the Egyptian Power in favour of the line
of Mehemet Ali.

" I trust that your Highness, whose protection and
aid have been so freely accorded me since the begin-
ning of your reign, and who is more interested than
anyone else in the success of the enterprise at the
head of which I have the honour to be, will appreciate
the obligation which is incumbent upon me to scrupu-
lously discharge all my duties, and that you will help
me to employ the necessary means for completing as
promptly as possible the work from which you will
derive so much glory and profit."

Such is the origin of the work of the Suez Canal.

With regard to the celebrated firman which pro-
voked so many international negotiations, the com-
pany went on its way without concerning themselves
any more about it, and without a day's delay.

The tranquillity of the president was to a great
extent due, especially during the last few years, to a
fact which has remained unknown to the public.

When Napoleon III. arrived at Marseilles, on
April 30th, 1865, to embark on his yacht, the Aigle, on
his way to Algeria, the Grand Vizier, Fuad Pasha,
who had come to the south of France to recruit his

VOL. II. M

154 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

health, was among the crowd of notables who were
grouped around the Emperor, who took no notice of
him, and did not reply to his bow. He then came up
closer and asked the Emperor if his Majesty had any
cause of complaint against him or his government.
The only answer he got was an expressive gesture
accompanying the single word "the firman."

This firman was in the end granted. The grand
inauguration of the canal took place on November
17th, 1869, in presence of the Empress Eugenie, the
Emperor of Austria, the Prince Imperial of Germany,
the Prince of Orange, General Ignatieff, representing
the Emperor of Eussia, and the ambassadors of all
the Powers from Constantinople. The number of
vessels which went through the canal from Port Said
to Suez was sixty, and the multitude of guests — men
of science, men of letters, and artists, from all
countries — were treated by the Khedive Ismail with
a magnificent hospitality unexampled in history.

This is a homage which I am proud to pay him
after the painful occurrences which have afflicted
Egypt and removed him from power.

CHAPTER Y.

A QUESTION OF THE DAY.

IT will, I think, not be out of place if I supple-
ment this chapter with " a question of the
day" (actualite), in the shape of a letter which I
addressed to Lord Stratford deRedcliffe in 1855, with
reference to an eventual seizure of Egypt, either by
France or by England.

" CONSTANTINOPLE, February 28, 1S55.

" There are questions which it is necessary to face
openly, in order to solve them aright, just as there are
wounds that must be probed before they can be
healed. The straightforward way in which you met
my preliminary observations with reference to an
affair, to the gravity of which I am fully alive, em-
boldens me to submit to your consideration one point
which, as it seems to me, it is desirable to keep iu
view with reference to the Isthmus of Suez. Owing
to the great influence which your character and your
long experience enable you rightly to exercise in the
decisions of your government in all Eastern ques-
tions, I am specially anxious to omit nothing which

M2

156 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

may assist you in forming your opinion in full know-
ledge of all the facts.

" The results already obtained by the ultimate alli-
ance of France and England show very clearly how
advantageous their union is in the interests of the
equilibrium of Europe and of civilisation. It con-
cerns, therefore, the future and the happiness of all
the nations of the universe to maintain intact, and to
preserve from any shock, a state of things which, to
the lasting honour of the governments which have
brought it about, can alone, with the aid of time,
ensure to humanity the blessings of progress and of
peace. Hence follows the necessity of getting rid,
without delay, of any possible cause of rupture or
even of coolness between the two peoples. Hence, in
consequence, it was our bounden duty, with a view
to future contingencies, to search out what are the
circumstances calculated to awaken the secular feel-
ings of antagonism, and to provoke, either upon the
one side or the other, any of those emotions against
the force of which the wisest of governments is
powerless to contend. The motives of hostile rivalry
show a tendency gradually to give way to that
generous emulation which engenders great achieve-
ments.

"To look at the situation from a general point of
view, one fails to see upon what ground, and a propos
of what, the struggles which have so long caused the
world to reek with blood, are likely to be renewed.

A QUESTION OF THE DAY. 157

Are the two peoples divided by financial and com-
mercial interests ? Why, the capital of Great Britain,
invested in all manner of French enterprises, and the
immense development assumed by international com-
merce, establish between them ties which grow closer
every day. Are political interests or questions of
principle at stake ? Why, the two nations have but
one and the same aim, but one and the same ambition
— the triumph of right over might, of civilisation
over barbarism. Is there any petty jealousy with
regard to territorial extension? Why, they both
recognise now the fact that the globe is large enough
to offer to the spirit of enterprise which animates
their respective populations land to be cultivated and
human beings to be redeemed from barbarism ; and,
moreover, so long as their flags float side by side, the
conquests of the one benefit the activity of the other.

" At first sight, therefore, one can see nothing in
the general aspect of affairs which can affect our
friendly relations with England. Nevertheless, look-
ing at the matter a little more closely, there is one
eventuality which, seeing how the most moderate and
enlightened cabinets are impelled to share popular
passions and prejudices, is capable of reviving ancient
antipathies, and of compromising the alliance and
the benefits deriving from it.

" For there is one point of the globe, upon the free
right of way through which depends the political and
commercial power of England, a point which France,

iS8 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

for her part, in centuries past, had the ambition to
possess. This point is Egypt, kthe direct route to
India — Egypt, which has been more than once dyed
with French blood.

"It is superfluous to go into the motives which
could not allow England to see Egypt fall into the
hands of a rival nation without offering the most
desperate resistance ; but a fact which must be also
taken into full account is that France in her turn,
though not so materially interested, could not, in
obedience to her glorious traditions, and under the
impulse of other sentiments more instinctive than
logical — and for that very reason all powerful upon
her impressionable inhabitants — allow England to
take peaceable possession of Egypt. It is evident
that as long as the route to India is open and
safe, that the state of the country guarantees facility
and promptitude of communication, England will not
voluntarily create for herself the gravest difficulties
in order to appropriate to herself a territory which,
in her eyes, is only valuable as a transit route. It
is equally clear that France, whose policy for the last
fifty years has consisted in contributing to the pros-
perity of Egypt, as well by her counsels as by the
assistance of a great many Frenchmen distinguished
in science, in administration, and in all the arts of
war and peace, will not, for her part, attempt to
realise the projects of another age so long as England
does not set foot there.

A QUESTION OF THE DAY. 159

"But should one of those crises which have so
often shaken the East occur, or any circumstance
arise which should compel England to take up a posi-
tion in Egypt, in order to prevent any other Power
forestalling her, it is certain that the alliance would
not survive the complications which such an event
would bring about. And why should England con-
sider herself forced to make herself mistress of
Egypt, even at the risk of breaking up her alliance
with France ? For the simple reason that Egypt is
England's shortest and most direct route to her
Eastern possessions, that this route must be con-
stantly open to her, and that upon this vital point
she can admit of no compromise. Thus, by reason of
the very position which in nature she occupies, Egypt
may again be the subject of a conflict between France
and Great Britain, so that this chance of a rupture
would disappear if by some providential event the
geographical conditions of the Old World were altered,
and the route to India, instead of traversing the heart
of Egypt, was put back to its limits, and, being open
to all the world, could no longer be the privilege of
any one nation in particular.

" Well, this event, which must be in the designs
of Providence, is now within the possibility of human
accomplishment. It may be achieved by human
enterprise, and may be realised by piercing the
Isthmus of Suez — an undertaking to which nature
offers no obstacle, and to which the capital of

160 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

England, as well as of other countries, would certainly
contribute.

" Let the isthmus only be pierced, let the waters
of the Mediterranean mingle with those of the Indian
Ocean, let the railway be continued and completed,
and Egypt, acquiring greater value as a country of
production, of internal trade, and of general transit,
will lose its perilous importance as an uncertain or
contested route of communication. The possession of
its territory, no longer being of any interest to Eng-
land, will cease to be a possible cause of contention
between her and France, the union of the two coun-
tries will become henceforward unalterable, and the
world be saved from the calamities which would
attend a rupture between them. This result offers
such great guarantees for the future that the mere
indication of it will suffice to command the sympathy
and the goodwill of the statesmen whose efforts are
bent upon placing the Anglo-French alliance upon
immovable foundations. You are one of these men,
my lord, and you have such a predominant part in
the discussion of great questions of state that I am
most anxious to acquaint you with my views and
aspirations."

CHAPTER VI.

AFTER THE WAR OF 1870-1871.

IN the year which followed the conclusion of peace
with Germany, the public administrations had
to undertake multifold and contradictory duties, which
created great complications, and entailed expenses
which it is difficult to measure until one comes to
examine them in detail. It was necessary both to
disorganise the war services, to reorganise the peace
services, and to make good the disasters which had
broken up all the machinery of ordinary government.
The first obstacles in the way of a return to a normal
state of things having been cleared away, an immense
amount of labour remained to be done in order to con-
solidate the work of peace.

Public and private interests had been so profoundly
troubled by the ten months of war and internal dis-
turbance, so many transformations were rendered
necessary by the new order of things, the re-establish-
ment of the country was so ardently desired, that an
immense number of laws, decrees, and administrative
measures were passed day after day, so to speak.

i6z RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

There would be a real interest and a patriotic duty
in making a compilation of all the acts which were
accomplished with the common object of raising the
prestige of France, of getting together the scattered
documents upon which it would be easy to lay hands
to-day, but which will be forgotten to-morrow.

A work of this kind would be not merely the diplo-
matic history of the peace with Germany, but the
history of the reconstruction of our country. "When
fate involves a nation in disaster, such as the war of
1870 was, there are two phases through which it
passes before resuming its rank in the world : the
diplomatic phase of the treaties which regulate peace
and its direct and immediate effects ; and the longer
phase during which the wounds of the war are closing,
order is being restored in the country, the truncated
limbs of the amputated territory are being tended, the
administration and finances are being reorganised,
and, in a word, the political equilibrium of the country
is being restored.

History has related the main outlines of the events
of 1870, and has also revealed certain anecdotal and
dramatic details of special interest. The publications
which have hitherto appeared have done little more
than register diplomatic documents, and a few official
letters, &c., so that I may say a few words about the
results of the conventions of 1871.

The diplomatic work done in 1815 was so great and
so complicated that it has of itself absorbed the atten-

AFTER THE WAR Of 1870-1871. 163

tion of public writers, for the re-arrangement of terri-
tory which took place at that period extended to the
greater part of Europe, and something like a fresh
equilibrium of the "Western world came into existence.
In 1870 we had to treat with Germany alone, the rest
of Europe being content to look on. The diplomatic
agreements were, no doubt, less numerous than in
1815. but the political reconstitution of France, which
was recovering, not only from a foreign war, but from
an internal revolution and a formidable insurrection-
one, it may be said, without precedent in her history,
plus quam civilia bella ! — necessitated an immense
number of operations connected more or less directly
to peace. As a case in point, let me instance the
making good of the damages arising from the invasion.
Of course, it was impossible to indemnify everyone,
and most of those who received pecuniary grants did
not recover all that they had lost. The whole of the
public fortune would not have sufficed for that, and,
moreover, there are losses which no money can make
good. But the sacrifices which France has made since
1871 for the victims of the war is the best proof of
the progress of civilisation and of national harmony
which have been exhibited since the beginning of the
century. In previous wars, and after those of the
First Empire, it never occurred to anyone that the
citizens of a country, being inter-dependent the one
upon the other, were in duty bound to form a sort of
mutual assistance fund for those who had suffered the

1 64 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

most. The victor alone turned his triumph to account,
making the vanquished compensate his subjects for
what they had lost. It was thus that in 1870, as in
1815, France was crushed by the weight of the
ransoms which she had to pay, but the difference
between the two epochs is that in 1870, despite the enor-
mous liabilities which defeat had entailed, the country
did not forget the provinces which had felt the full
weight of the invasion, and repaired, to the best of its
ability, the damage which had been done there. The
State showed itself liberal in its dealings with foreigners
as well as Frenchmen, both alike being allowed to
profit by the laws relating to indemnities. This
example will not, it is to be hoped, be forgotten by
any foreign countries which may be subjected to a
like trial, and in which Frenchmen may be residing
and may have suffered loss, either from foreign war or
internal discord. For, it must be remembered, in-
demnities were granted as well for the losses occa-
sioned by the German war as for those due to the
Communist insurrection. These indemnities were not
confined to individual losses, but were extended to
collective and corporate bodies. So it was that large
grants were made to railways ; that departments and
parishes were reimbursed for their expenses in con-
nection with the mobilisation of the National Guard ;
and that the road bridges destroyed during the war
were rebuilt at the cost of the State. The total
amount spent in this way exceeded £34,000,000.

AFTER THE WAR OF 1870-1871. 165

The two hundred millions paid by France to Germany
were in part applied to indemnify the Germans for
their losses. From the statements in the German
budget, it appears that a sum of £58,200,000 was
paid for losses incurred by the war, while a further
sum of £58,376,500 was granted to German ship-
builders, which may be taken as representing the
losses which our navy inflicted upon the maritime
trade of the enemy.

The indemnity allowed for bombardment in Lower
Alsace amounted to about two and a-half millions,
nearly the whole of which was paid in Strasburg. The
further employment of the war indemnity which we
paid reveals some interesting details. Thus we find
that the imperial fortresses received £10,800,000 —
those of Alsace £6,450,000. The Invalides received
£28,033,800, while an imperial treasure of £6,000,000
was created, and nearly half-a-million sterling was
spent in rewarding distinguished services. The
pensions for soldiers invalided during the war ex-
ceeded two millions sterling, while the total losses
which the Germans incurred during the campaign
amounted to 129,250 in killed, wounded, and missing,
of whom 5,153 were officers, 11,095 non-commissioned
officers, 1,292 musicians and trumpeters, 595 volun-
teers, and the remainder private soldiers. There were
44,996 killed; the losses during the first part of the
war (July to September) being 74,786, arid in the
second part (September, 1870, to May, 1871) 54,484.

1 66 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

The battle in which the Germans lost the most men
was Gravelotte, where 4,500 were killed and 16,175
wounded or missing.

Eeverting to the mode in which the two hundred
millions were spent, we find that after deducting the
various sums laid out as above, the amount remaining
for division between the various German States was
£118,411,550, of which the North German Confeder-
ation received £79,114,200, Bavaria £13,468,800,
Wurtemburg £4,248,200, Baden £3,050,000, and
Southern Hesse, £1,400,000.

The payment of the war indemnity to Germany
constitutes, with the loans which it entailed, the
largest financial operation ever carried out. It was
part and parcel of the evacuation of the territory,
which was conducted concurrently with it. To form
an idea of the manifold constructions and contrivances
to which the Treasury had to resort in order to effect
the payment of the indemnity, one must read the
report of the Budget Committee of 1875, which M.
Leon Say presented to the National Assembly. The
Bank of France rendered invaluable services in this
arduous juncture, but the most remarkable feature of
the operation was the international character which it
assumed, this being quite a novelty in the economical
history of Europe.

All the efforts of all the banking-houses in Europe
were concentrated upon this one object. All other
business was suspended in order to facilitate the com-

AFTER THE WAR OF' iS-jo-iSji. 167

pletion of the French loans and the transmission of
the sum abroad. The French Government did not
pay to Germany in cash more than £21,840,000 in
gold and £10,920,000 in silver, the rest being in
letters of credit and bills. The cost of conversion was
rather more than £500,000, and the only point which
has not been cleared up, and which it would be
interesting to ascertain, is how, after having des-
patched from France the sums of money collected in
so many other countries, they were then remitted to
Germany, which could only have been done by con-
verting all the other foreign securities into German
securities. It appears that this operation was in a
great measure facilitated by the fact that during the
years 1871-73 Germany was largely indebted to
England for the balance of trade. But the report of
the National Assembly does not give any further details
upon this point.

Another large operation, resulting from the pay-
ment of this indemnity, was that which involved the
reconstitution of our war material, and this forms a
chaos into which it is no easy matter to throw any
light, the schemes of the Government and of the
financial committees of the Assembly having varied a
good deal owing to the uncertainty as to what was
the best way to go to work. It is certain that at the
termination of the war, when it was necessary to re-
plenish our emptied arsenals and stores, to reconstitute
our new frontier and our army, there was no means

i68 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

of including these expenses in the ordinary budget.
In 1873 it was decided that the maximum of the
expenses to be included under this special heading
should be £30,920,000, but this was soon exceeded,
and the account was divided into two parts. The first
was paid off in 1875, at £36,587,000, while the second,
comprising the years 1876-79, absorbed more than
£56,000,000. It was only in 1879 that this special
estimate could be incorporated in the budget, where
it forms an item by itself called, "Depenses sur
ressources extraordinaires." This estimate has neces-
sitated an enormous number of documents, reports,
and discussions, which make it very difficult to under-
stand.

One need have a special gift for financial business
to make head or tail of it, and M. Yillefort's book on
the subject may be consulted with advantage, par-
ticularly in regard to the accounts of the territory
ceded to Germany. At first sight it may appear as if
the cession of territory, after a war of conquest, is a
matter of public concern only, but we must not forget
how many private interests are affected by it and have
to be indemnified.

The Franco-German Commission at Strasburg took
eight years to effect this settlement, and from their
accounts it appears that France paid to Germany for
the debts peculiar to Alsace-Lorraine £1,680,000, and
received from Germany only £600,000.

The annexation entailed other arrangements, such as

AFTER THE WAR OF 1870-1871. 169

the remodelling of the French frontier departments
from the judicial and administrative point of view, and
this is not the least interesting part of the whole
story. But the main fact, which sums up all the rest,
is the total account of what the war cost us. The
figures, which tell us this themselves, testify to the
financial power and vitality of our country.

The total of this cost, excluding, of course, the
losses sustained by the various branches of industry
and trade during and immediately after the war,
exceeds £1,460,000,000. In this total, extraordinary
war expenses are put at about £80,000,000, war
indemnities at £36,000,000, and the maintenance of
the German troops at £14,000,000. The cost of the
different loans is estimated at £25,240,000, and the
net loss from the territory annexed at £2,640,000,
while the reconstruction of our war and naval material
is given at £80,000,000.

The question as to whether the State is responsible
to the inhabitants of the country for the damage caused
by war is a very important and complex one. Theo-
retically, it excites the liveliest controversy, and from
a practical point of view it forms the subject of con-
stant demands upon the Government. Various views
were expressed in the National Assembly, but the
majority did not make any exceptions or distinctions
which in strict justice could be repudiated. As I
have already said, foreigners as well as Frenchmen
were allowed to benefit by the beneficent measures

VOL. II. N

i yo RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

adopted, and these measures applied alike to the
damage done by the French or the German forces.

The new French frontier has, owing to the division
of territory, made necessary a reorganisation of the
military and religious services, and here again the
various interests which had to be conciliated were
most complicated. One of the most difficult matters
was the reconstitution of the documents bearing on
the identity of the soldiers who had disappeared, and
the regulating of their successions, while arrangements
had to be made for keeping in order the burial-places
of the two armies. The two governments, with
much good feeling, agreed that these burial-places
should, without distinction of nationality, be kept in a
proper state ; and at the present time the various spots
where the dust of 87,000 Frenchmen and Germans lies
mingled together are marked by a funereal monument.

The dead who sleep upon foreign soil should ever
remind us of the danger of war to which a State is
constantly exposed. This is why a complete military
organisation is the best security for a country in these
days of gigantic armaments. The re-establishment of
our means of communication and the formation of
reserve forces are the objects to which patriotic pru-
dence should tend — objects which are not unfortu-
nately yet reached. It is certain, however, that we
have obtained since 1870, despite difficulties of a
political, financial, administrative, and military order,
the required elements for our national defence. That

AFTER THE WAR OF 1870-1871. 171

dreadful war, by which were torn from us territories
which Germany has not yet assimilated, was perhaps
so far beneficial to France as to warn her of the
dangers of an adventurous policy. "While it has
inflicted upon us a loss in money of so many hundreds
of millions, and has necessitated a complete renewal of
our whole system of government, it has at all events
been a terrible lesson for all governments, and es-
pecially for France.

CHAPTER VII.

THE INTEKOCEANIC CANAL AND THE CONGEESS OF 1879.

WHEN" the Isthmus of Suez was made we were
merely realising the aspirations of the early
masters of Egypt, for, according to the Arab histo-
rians, the Pharaoh who reigned in the time of Abra-
ham had already conceived the idea of dividing
the African isthmus, in honour of the visit of the
patriarch and his wife Sarah, so as to establish com-
munication by water between Egypt and Arabia.

"We may ask, therefore, if it be true, as the old
proverb has it, that there is nothing new under the
sun, and that our ancestors discovered everything
that required doing, and merely left to us, their de-
scendants, the task of carrying out their designs ?
But even if this is so, we have no reason to be less
proud, for is it not a glorious thing for us to be able
to carry out the vast projects which they had con-
ceived but were unable to realise, thus affirming the
progress made by our race and age, in which all
obstacles seem to have disappeared. The other day
it was Suez, the isthmus of which was pierced, and

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 173

the writer of these lines may be pardoned for recall-
ing with pride how the year 1869 marked the realisa-
tion of a scheme which was desired by the Pharaohs
of the sixtieth century before Christ, of a work which
the men who built the Pyramids and drained Lake
Mceris were unable to accomplish.

A like work is now being undertaken upon the
American continent, upon the narrow neck of land
which divides North and South. The idea is not a
new one, for while America was discovered in 1472,
and Balboa ascertained the existence of the Pacific
Ocean in 1513, an attempt was made to unite the
two oceans in 1514. "When the Spanish adventurers
ascertained that there was no natural passage between
the Atlantic and the Pacific, they conceived the idea
of cutting a canal through the spurs of the Cordilleras.
Just as it is certain that nature abhors difficulties and
encourages their overthrow, so it is certain that the
maritime trade of the globe ardently desires the
creation of a navigable zone which will enable it to
make the tour of the world, getting rid of the circuit
of Cape Horn as that of the Cape of Good Hope has
has already been got rid of.

The creation of a canal to unite the Atlantic and
the Pacific having given rise to much discussion, I
have thought it interesting to summarise what has
been said on the subject.

1 74. RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

I.

The writings of the Spanish conquerors had, for
more than two centuries, been consigned to the oblivion
of the archives at Madrid, when the project of pierc-
ing the isthmus was revived. As soon as the impetus
was given, there was a general outburst of enthusiasm
among the hardy mariners and explorers who were
eager to open a new route to the world's commerce.
I should occupy too much space were I to quote all
the names attached to this wonderful enterprise, but
I cannot pass on without saluting the most famous
among them, including Nelson, Childs, Lloyd, and
our fellow-countryman Garella, and, above all, Thome
de Gam on d, who was the first to propose the making
of a tunnel between France and England, and he lived
long enough to see it at all events begun. There can
be no higher reward for those who devote their lives
to the pursuance of useful truths than to witness the
commencement of the enterprise upon which their
hearts are set. From the year 1780 down to the
present day a host of projects have been put forward
for piercing the isthmus, some of them very carefully
thought out and others purely fancy schemes. But
the last few years have produced more than the whole
of the previous period. The opening of the Suez
Canal in 1869 produced a complete revolution in the
commercial relations of the whole world, and I have
no doubt that this event had a considerable influence

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 175

upon the researches into the piercing of the American
canal. For it is within the last fifteen years that so
many bodies of explorers have gone out to investigate
the nature of the work, and have come back loaded
with valuable information calculated to throw light
upon this intricate question. All honour to them
for their zeal in assisting science to make this
great step forward. At the same time, geogra-
phical studies which had been so much neglected
in France, had, as a result of the war of 1870, which
showed how necessary they were, again occupied
public attention, and the learned societies which had
inscribed geography in their programme commanded
plenty of support.

Thus at the Antwerp International Congress,
General Heine propounded the interoceanic scheme
due to M. de Gogorza, and at the Paris Congress in
1875 the same subject occupied several sittings when
I was in the chair. The information necessary for
discussing the question in detail was not then forth-
coming, and all that could be done was to express
approval of the principle and convoke for a near date
a special congress, or, it should rather be said, an
international jury, to collect and collate all the neces-
sary documents, and to form a definite opinion, after
full deliberation, as to the technical and financial
possibility of the work.

This resolution had the effect of giving a fresh,
impetus to the explorers and the authors of the scheme,

176 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

all of whom were anxious to submit to the Congress
complete and accurate plans. So that as soon as the
proposed congress was announced, two companies
were formed for making fresh expeditions, one of
which visited Nicaragua, following the original route of
Thome de Gamond and Blanchet, while the other,
under the conduct of General Tiirr, explored the
more southern regions of Darien and Panama, march-
ing in the steps of Garella, Lacharine, and Selfridge.
The three years between 1875 and 1879 were fruitful
in active researches and energetically conducted ex-
ploration. At the same date the expeditions set on
foot by the United States were brought to a conclu-
sion, and the able officers in command, Collins, Hull,
Shufeldt, and especially Selfridge and Menocal, had
left no part of the isthmus unexplored, while the
documents which they brought back with them were
calculated to facilitate the labours of the Congress
very materially.

"When the time arrived, and all the details relating
to the recent expeditions were in my possession, I
summoned the Congress, applying to all the savants,
engineers, and sailors of the Old and New World, as
well as to the chambers of commerce and the geo-
graphical societies, whom I asked to appoint dele-
gates.

Few assemblies have included so many illustrious
names as this great tribunal, which consisted of the
leading representatives of science, politics, and indus-

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 177

try. The first sitting was held on the 15th of May,
1879, at the meeting place of the Geographical Society,
nearly every country being represented at the Con-
gress. Mexico sent the engineer, F. de Garay, and
China the mandarin Li-Shu-Chang. The United
States were represented by Admiral Ammen, whose
wide knowledge was of great service, Commander
Selfridge, and the engineer, Menocal ; while the coun-
tries of Europe had sent their leading geographers
and engineers, such as Sir John Hawkshaw, and Sir
John Stokes, Commander Cristoforo Negri, Signor de
Gioia, the engineer Dirks, who cut the Amsterdam
canal, and his colleague Conrad, President Ceresole,
Colonel Coello, Dr. Broch, Admiral Likatcheff, Colonel
Wouvermans, M. d'Hane Stenhuys, and many others
whose names I ought perhaps to add, including all
the most eminent scientific men in France. With an
assembly thus composed, it was quite certain that the
discussion would be frank, open, and luminous, and
that the Congress would not separate until it had
found a solution for the problem which was set be-
fore it.

The labours of this assembly will occupy an impor-
tant place in history, and it will not, therefore, be
thought that the space which I devote to the subject
here is more than its importance deserves. In order
to expedite its task the Congress was subdivided into
five committees, each of which undertook to investi-
gate one division of the very complex subject which

178 RECOLLECTIONS Of FORTY YEARS.

we had to discuss, and it is these commissions which
we have to thank for enabling us, by their scientific
labours and lucid discussions, to come to a speedy
conclusion.

The first, presided over by M. Levasseur, was
a statistical one, its task being to estimate the
probable traffic of the canal — that is to say, to go
through the customs' returns of all the ports of Europe
and America, and see what tonnage would in ail pro-
bability pass through the canal. I had had an oppor-
tunity of saying that the best course for the Panama,
as it had been for the Suez Canal, would be to prose-
cute the work by means of public money, and ask for
nothing from any of the governments, leaving the
enterprise its purely industrial character, and avoiding
anything like dabbling in politics. The question,
therefore, was to know whether the capital invested
would obtain a sufficient return by the traffic passing
through the canal. This was what the first commis-
sion had to calculate.

The second commission supplemented the work of
the first, and was called the Economic Commission.
After having calculated how many tons of merchan-
dise would pass through the interoceanic canal, it
remained to be seen what income the traffic would
yield, and calculate, therefore, what tariff could be
charged vessels passing through. Then it was neces-
sary to estimate what would be the consequence of
the cutting of the American isthmus, what influence

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 179

the canal would have upon the trade and industry of
each nation, and what new markets it would open to
the trade of the whole world. The second commission,
for which M. Simonin acted as reporter, was charged
with the examination of the economical and financial
results of the enterprise. The province of the third
section was a more technical one, and it was composed
of sailors, who discussed the influence of the canal
upon shipbuilding, elucidated the regime of the winds
and currents near the various canal routes submitted
to the consideration of the jury, and pointed out under
what conditions the safety and facility of the passage
through the canal could be secured. This commission
made an estimate of the speed of the vessels in pro-
portion to the draught of water, and gave its opinions
as to the effect of locks and tunnels in a canal intended
to be used by the largest ships in existence.

The fourth commission was appointed to report
upon the different routes for the canal submitted to
the congress by their respective authors. Differing
in this respect from the other sections, its functions
were of a more general kind, as it had to discuss each
project from an engineering point of view, to indicate
the advantages and drawbacks of each, and fix what
each would cost, both for construction and annual
maintenance. The fifth commission was known as
that of ways and means, and its duty was to complete,
by entering into more details as to figures, the work
of the second commission, and to name definitely the

i8o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

tariff which it would be desirable to charge, having
regard to the probable earnings of the canal and the
capital employed in making and working it.

The main object which we kept in view when
forming these commissions was to draft as far as pos-
sible the most competent men into each of them.
Thus the economists and geographers were placed in
the two first sections, the naval men in the third, the
engineers in the fourth, and the financiers in the fifth.
They were all requested to be very reserved in their
appreciations, and only to offer an opinion after the
most careful scrutiny, so that the public might rest
assured that there had not been the slightest tendency
to take too optimist or enthusiastic a view of the under-
taking.

The general results of the discussion are preserved
in the reports of the public sittings, and more espe-
cially in the striking reports of the various commis-
sions, which will remain an imperishable record of
the history of the American Canal, and which must
be read in detail in order to appreciate the lucid and
learned information which they placed before the
Congress. The most prejudiced will be constrained
to admire the laborious efforts which enabled a hun-
dred men, ardent in the pursuit of science, to place
such a mass of evidence before the Congress during
its brief session.

I propose to briefly review their labours, first of
all examining the general considerations which were

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 181

submitted to the international jury, and received its
approval.

ii.

The base of the problem to be solved was, as I have
already said, the maritime traffic which it was neces-
cessary to attract.

In the Statistical Commission, the principal repre-
sentatives of the American States and the adminis-
trators of the great maritime companies met under
the presidency of Signor Mendes Leal. They first
proceeded to examine the results of the working of
the Suez Canal, which had then been open for ten
years, and they asked for a report on this subject
from M. Fontane, the Secretary-General of the Suez
Canal Company, whose report made a deep impres-
sion upon the Congress. M. Fontane proved, figures
in hand, that an annual traffic of six million tons
was only possible in a canal through which fifty
ships could pass in the twenty-four hours. " This was
why it was necessary," added M. Fontane, "in making
the Suez Canal to adopt the system of a canal on one
level without locks or drawbacks, to the exclusion of
several very ingenious and bold plans presented by
engineers of great repute." These views, which were
the outcome of long and well-grounded experience,
could not but have a marked effect on the minds of
the members of the Assembly in respect to the choice
which they had to make among the various systems
submitted to them.

1 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

After having laid down this first and very impor-
tant consideration, the Statistical Commission pursued
their task and prepared a voluminous report, the work
of M. Levasseur, whose scientific authority was a sure
guarantee against his giving reins to his fancy. The
plan which he adopted was proof against all criticism,
as he first sought to determine, by an examination of
the official returns of all the States, what tonnage
would take the route of the interoceanic canal. After
long and careful calculation, based upon the returns
for 1876, he estimated this traffic at £72,000,000, or
4,830,000 tons of merchandise. Taking into account
the annual increase in commerce, which for the years
1860-1876 was six per cent., he arrived at the con-
clusion that, with a much slower increase, the tonnage
would reach 7,249,000 tons by the time of the pro-
bable opening of the canal in 1890. This was the
minimum traffic of the canal as estimated by the
commission, and these figures are in no way sur-
prising when the Pacific railway carries more than a
million tons, while the trade of Cuba exceeds 2,000,000
tons, and California alone produces 1,200,000 tons of
grain. Our figures are well within the mark, I am
sure, and they do not include, moreover, the trans-
port of passengers, nor the large and small coasting
trade, which, at present quite insignificant, will de-
velop with surprising rapidity in the Gulf of Mexico
and the "West Indies.

The above-mentioned tonnage will show what an

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 183

important influence upon the history of the globe this
new route will have. The labours of the second
commission, presided over by Mr. Nathan Appleton,
of Boston, completed this first report by showing
what new markets would be opened, what new traffic
would be created, and what advantages the traffic
already in existence would derive from the cutting of
the American isthmus. M. Simonin, the reporter of
the commission, summed up these advantages in a
very able report, which shows the distances that would
be saved to navigators. From France and England,
that is to say, from Liverpool, Havre, Nantes, and
Bordeaux, the distance to San Francisco, round Cape
Horn, is 5,000 leagues, whereas by Panama it would
be only 1,500. For Valparaiso the distance would
be reduced from 3,000 to 2,000 leagues. The saving
in time for sailing vessels would be sixty days to
San Francisco and thirty to Valparaiso. To this must
be added the fact that steamers and sailing vessels
alike would avoid the dangerous passage round Cape
Horn. Thus the distance and the time in going from
one part of the globe to the other would be materially
shortened, and there would be such a reduction in the
rates of assurance and freight that maritime inter-
course would soon double itself, and that many mar-
kets now closed to European commerce would be
opened, and provide it with fresh openings for import
and export trade.

The New World will send us its woods, its indigo,

184 RECOLLECTIONS Of FORTY YEARS.

its coffee, its rice, its sugar, its india-rubber, and
much of the mineral wealth which at present is only
partially developed. Produce which at the present
rate for freight is not readily carried, such as corn
and fruit, will then be easy of export ; and as produce
is only exchanged for produce, the industry of Europe,
receiving a fresh impetus, will send its manufactured
articles all over the American continent.

The task of the Commission of Navigation, much
shorter and more technical than that of the two first,
was presided over by Dr. Broch, a former minister of the
navy in Norway. It comprised several distinguished
naval officers, such as MM. de Togores, Linden, and
de Marivault, and the heads of several great French
and foreign shipping-houses. The report of its inves-
tigations, drawn up by M. Spement, a director of the
Suez company, reviewed the probable influence which
the cutting of the Panama Canal would have upon the
transformation of shipping. He considered that the
opening of the canal would favour sailing vessels
even more than steamers, owing to the advantages
derived by the former from the permanency of trade
winds in the Gulf of Mexico. Speaking from another
point of view, he recalled the fact that among the
many schemes proposed, some involved the making of
a tunnel, others that of locks. " As regards the tun-
nel," concluded the report, " the vessels would have
to go through with their mainmasts up, and as the
largest vessels, such as the France and the Annamite,

THE IXTEROCEAXIC CAXAL. **

hare very high mists, they would require an altitude
of nearly a hundred feet above the level of the water.
With regard to lodes, they must be sufficiently nume-
rous to admit of fifty Teasels going through in a day.
This is the total which has been reached at Sues, and
there is no reason why it should not be equalled, and
even exceeded, by the Panama CanaL It would be
necessary, therefore, to have double locks, side by
side, one for rnssels going west and the otibu far
vessels going east, and the construction of these would

*T * 1 "W" ^ * A I

fore, I would say that a canal with locks ought only
to be accepted if a canal on the level is proved to be
impossible. So with regard to the tunnel, which
should only be adopted if it is found that owing to
technical difficulties or excessive cost, the canal

one."

m.

Thus far I have been explaining how three of the
without t*feu*g into account questions of

persons, or special schemes, treated the general
and theoretical part of the subject To them it was a
•alU • of imliftn mm •¥• Ilii • llui lanil • • In Thm i i
or the Bayano, by Nicaragua or Panama. In either ease
the traffic would be the same, and the nations of the
east and of the west would derive the
from the making of the canal. The technical
had quite an opposite task to

TOL. II. O

i86 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

closely into the details of the subject, taking one after
another the numerous projects presented to the con-
ference by their authors, to study them in detail so as
to bring out their commercial or technical advantages,
as well as to indicate their drawbacks and cost. This
first work achieved, the technical commission had at
its command the necessary elements for comparing all
the projects, and' selecting the one which it would
advise the Congress, at its plenary sitting, to adopt.
M. Daubree, member of the French Institute, was
president, and Yoisin Bey, formerly director of the
works of the Suez Canal, reporter. The commission
comprised the most eminent specialists of all nations,
and it is quite certain that a decision ratified by the
names of Messrs. Hawkshaw, Dirks, Pascal, de
Fourcy, Favre, Couvreux, Lavalley, and Euelle, who
carried as much moral as they did scientific weight,
would be beyond the reach of criticism. Who better
than the creator of the Amsterdam Canal could treat
of the question of large locks ? Who better than
the lamented constructor of the St. Gothard Tunnel
could discuss the question of the immense tunnel in
Panama, and the difficulties which would be entailed
in making it? Who more competent than Messrs.
Lavalley and Couvreux to speak of the cost of dredg-
ing and of excavating, both on dry land and under
water ? Then, again, all the engineers who assisted
me at Suez had assuredly acquired the experience
necessary for settling the questions raised by the

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 187

examination of the various American projects for
the canal.

The authors of all these projects appeared before
the commission — viz., Messrs. Ammen, Menocal, Sel-
friclge, de Garay, Blanchet, Belly, Wyse, Eeclus,
Mainfroi, and de Puydt — and expounded their plans,
and met the objections which were advanced. This
first operation, which occupied several long and inte-
resting sittings, having been completed, the discussion
began. Two important sub-committees were formed,
one, which consisted of MM. de Fourcy, Yoisin Bey,
and five other members, being instructed to appreciate
from a technical point of view, the character of the
various routes ; while the other, upon which MM.
Euelle, Favre, Lavalley, Couvreux, and Cotard sat,
undertook to make an estimate of the cost of each
plan, and to fix the probable earnings of it, based
upon an identical scale of prices for each kind of
work. It was between the reports drawn up by these
two commissions that the Congress as a whole would
be called upon to decide, and by making a summary
of their investigations I shall best be able to give my
readers an idea of the various schemes submitted to
the opinion of the jury.

In order to explain them properly, I must say a
few words as to the geography of the American isth-
mus, which extends a distance of 1,437 miles from
the north-west to the south-east. Only the coasts
and the banks of some of the principal rrvers are

o2

i88 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

inhabited, the interior of the country being so scantily
peopled that the total population is only three millions,
while France, covering the same area, has a popula-
tion seven or eight times as large. There are next
to no roads, and what few exist are very badly kept.
Excepting these, the only means of communication
are the rivers, and many of these are very difficult to
navigate, as they are intersected by rapids, which the
Indian avoids by carrying his canoe overland. The
climate is a very torrid one, while it often rains for
six months in the year, the annual rainfall at Panama
exceeding ten feet. It is not surprising that, with
such a high temperature and so heavy a rainfall, the
vegetation develops with wonderful rapidity. Thus
the organic life of the isthmus is very exuberant, and
the virgin forests, with their gigantic cactus and
cocoa trees, and their undergrowth, athwart which the
native cuts a path with his axe or knife, form an inex-
tricable network. It would almost seem as if all the
venomous inmates of Noah's Ark had been emptied
here, the country swarming with serpents whose bite
is fatal, monstrous spiders, scorpions, and jaguars ;
but, upon the other hand, it lends itself admirably to
cultivation and industry, by means of which it would
soon be completely transformed.

The ground is mountainous, the chain of the Andes
rising to a height of over 13,000 feet, and presenting
a striking contrast of volcanoes and of summits
capped with snow. This is the land in which the

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 189

canal is about to be cut ; it is upon this wide cause-
way, which separates North and South America, that
the weak point in the armour has been found to effect
a breach between the two oceans.

Let us begin with the north and "go southward,
following the report of the sub-committee. We come
first to the isthmuses of Tehuantepec and Honduras ;
next to Nicaragua, then to Panama, San Bias, and
Darien, each of these passages corresponding to one
or more schemes for a canal, either on the level or
with locks.

Sefior de Garay, the Mexican delegate, dwelt with
great force and sincerity upon the advantages offered
by Tehuantepec for the tracing of the canal, but he
met with little support. His scheme entailed a canal
150 miles long, with a maximum altitude of 975 feet
above the level of the sea, to reach which 60 locks
upon each slope would have been required. The cost
of constructing these 120 locks and the fact that
vessels would have been twelve days passing through
the canal led to the immediate rejection of this
project.

Seven or eight engineers, among them Messrs.
Blanchet, Lull, and Menocal, brought forward plans
for making the canal by way of Nicaragua. The
geographical position of Nicaragua is, as a matter of
fact, a very favourable one for the purpose, as in the
centre of the isthmus a fine lake, 110 miles long by
35 broad, occupies the plateau which is 125 feet above

1 90 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the level of the Atlantic. This lake receives the
waters of some forty streams, and flows into the
Atlantic through that noble river, the San Juan.
Unfortunately this stream is intersected by several
cataracts which render navigation impossible. One
of the worst of these cataracts is human handiwork ;
for the inhabitants of the colony, to protect themselves
from the fillibusters who ravaged the West Indies in
the seventeenth century, obstructed the course of the
San Juan by sinking vessels in it with trunks of trees
and large masses of rock. The water being driven
back found a fresh outlet at the side of the San Juan,
and this outlet, now known as the Eio Colorado, has
never been stopped. In order to improve the navi-
gation of the San Juan it would be necessary to
canalize it by means of seven or eight locks, and
to regulate its course by an immense embankment
twenty -eight miles long upon the other slope. It
would further be necessary to intersect the Eivas
with a deep trench, make seven more locks, and
create at the two ends of the canal Greytown and
Brito, harbours upon coasts which are very unsuited
for the purpose. The partizans of these projects
urged in their favour the superiority of the climate,
the abundance of materials in the country, and the
relative density of the population; and it was very
clear that if the canal was to be one with locks, this
would have been the best of them. The total length
of the canal, including the 55 miles of the upper lake,

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 191

would have been 182J miles, and the time occupied in
going through it four days and a-half.

The Americans, through the mouthpiece of Admiral
Ammen, were very much in favour of this project,
which was admirably conceived and propounded by
one of their engineers (Menocal). A French engineer,
M. Blanchet, proposed to amend it by prolonging the
summit-level of the Yalley of San Juan, and by
substituting for the seven locks which formed part of
the American scheme a large work with 105 feet
difference of level, which had been designed by MM.
Ponchet and Sauterean, and which one of our most
distinguished constructors, M. Eiffel,* was to have
carried out. The gates of this lock were to have
weighed nearly 1,000 tons, and to have been 23 feet
thick.

Two officers in the French navy, Messrs. Wyse and
Eeclus, who had explored the country with great
perseverance, presented a scheme for cutting a canal
on the level through the Isthmus of Panama, and
before they had proceeded far with the explanation of
their scheme, it was clear that they had made a deep
impression upon the members of the Commission, and
that herein lay the solution of the problem. If
objections were raised at first, this was rather, it
seemed, with the view of disposing of them, so as to

* Note of the Translator. — M. Eiffel is now erecting the iron
tower, 1,000 feet high, which is to be one of the features of the
Paris Exhibition in 1889.

192 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTF YEARS.

be free to consider, with perfect freedom of mind, all
the advantages which the project presented. The
Wyse canal was to follow the thalweg of the river
Chagres, pass under the Cordillera by means of an
immense tunnel, and reach the Pacific slope by the
valley of Eio Grande. In the course of the discussion
the authors of this scheme, in obedience to the advice
given them, agreed to substitute for the tunnel a
deep cutting in the mountain, and the Mexicans, it
may be added, have set the example in this respect,
the cutting at Desague being 220 feet through, while
that of Panama will not exceed 290 feet. Two ob-
jections had struck the Technical Commission, and
it was, I think, very striking evidence of the advan-
tages which the Panama project possessed in the eyes
of the experienced engineers sitting upon it, that it
was they who urged the authors of the project to
overcome their objections.

The first of these objections bore upon the sudden
risings of the Chagres Eiver. This river rises so
rapidly that it has been known to rise more than
twenty-five feet in a single night. The question was
how to get rid of the waters, the irruption of which
would have been dangerous in the making and work-
ing of the canal. M. Wyse first proposed to form a
vast reservoir of the overflow of these waters, in
immense excavations which would admit of an outflow
of over 330 cubic yards a second. But this did not
satisfy the Commission, which urged that it was no

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 193

trifling affair to create an artificial lake of this kind,
and to maintain such, a mass of water suspended 100
feet above the canal. Why not free the canal entirely
and make a separate bed for the river ? This was the
solution upon which the authors of the scheme even-
tually agreed, at the instant advice of the Commission.

The second objection was that the Pacific tide is
19 J feet at Panama, while the Atlantic tide at Colon
is only two feet. This would cause currents running
four or five knots an hour in the canal, and create a
danger to navigation. The remedy for this will be to
create a tidal gate at Panama, and place at the
entrance to the canal a waiting basin, where ships can
pay the customs and transit dues while waiting for a
suitable hour to enter the canal.

If to this we add that the Panama Canal passes
within half-a-mile of the railway, that the latter will
be most useful for bringing labourers and materials to
the works, and that the length of time occupied in
going through the 47 J miles of canal will be only
thirty-six hours, the words of the sub- Commission
need no further justification: — "The Panama canal on
the level technically presents itself under the most
satisfactory conditions, and ensures every facility, as it
gives every security, for the transit of vessels from
one sea to another."

I must say a word about the San Bias Canal. Ad-
vocated by Messrs. Appleton and Bailey, this canal had
in its favour the fact of its being shorter than any of the

194- RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

others, its length being only 33 miles, but of this
nine miles were tunnel, while the river Bayano had to
be diverted from its course, so that the Technical Com-
mission felt bound to reject it.

Upon the other hand, the Commission examined
with the utmost care and interest the remarkable
researches of an officer of the American navy, whose
name I have already mentioned, Commander Self-
ridge. The Selfridge scheme followed the Darien
Isthmus and the Atrato Eiver, which it was to canalize
for a distance of 150 miles, and it then made a sharp
bend southward, and reached the bay of Chiri-Chiri
by a cutting and a tunnel two and a-half miles long.
But the question was, whether this Atrato Eiver, the
mouth of which formed a vast and marshy delta, could
be so deepened as to ensure over twenty-five feet of
water at its bar, and, if so, how this depth of water
was to be maintained ? Then, again, it was difficult
to see how the risings of the Atrato were to be fore-
seen, and their effects alleviated, so that the Com-
mission felt compelled to reject Commander Selfridge' s
scheme.

The Commission also examined, just as it was about
to break up, a scheme which its author, M. de Puydt,
produced without any documentary evidence to back
it up, and which proposed to cut the canal through
Darien, from Puerto Eseondido to Thuyra. The
watershed by this route was the pass of Tanela Paya,
the slope of which, according to M. de Puydt, is only

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 195

150 feet, so that the canal could have been on the
level. The author's figures were, however, given
without anything to support them, and were directly
contradicted by other explorers ; and it was only in
order to show its absolute impartiality that the Com-
mission thought right to examine his project.

When all was done, two projects alone were before
the Commission : one for making the canal through
Nicaragua, the other through Panama.

The first, which was the less costly, as it was esti-
mated to involve an expenditure of £32,000,000, while
the latter was to exceed £40,000,000, was at the same
time more limited in its scope, and longer in point of
distance and time. The objections to it were its six-
teen locks, its reaches, which the vegetation of the
tropics would cover with terrible rapidity, its works
of art, which the slightest shock of earthquake might
destroy, and the care and deliberation which the
handling of so much delicate apparatus would entail.
There was nothing of this kind to apprehend with the
Panama Canal, which was a fourth shorter than the
other in point of distance and a third in point of time,
while it did not entail any works of art, or set any
limit upon the number of ships which could pass
through it in the twenty-four hours. This was surely
sufficient to justify the decision of the Technical
Commission.

Upon the proposal of the engineers of the Suez Canal,
the Commission decided by a large majority against

iq6 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the system of locks, and declared strongly in favour of
an open canal on the level, the feasibility of which
seemed quite clear if the Colon-Panama line was
followed.

But compelled by its mission to make a choice be-
tween the various schemes submitted to it; the
Commission was nevertheless desirous of testifying
to howr carefully most of them had been thought
out, and to the talent of their authors. "More
especially," to borrow the exact words of the
report, "to the eminent American engineers and
explorers whose admirable researches will remain
as a monument in the history of this gigantic
undertaking." The Technical Commission also
pointed out how the canal should be made, that the
curves should not be under \\ miles, that it should
be 72 feet wide and 28 feet deep, and that there
should be only one canal as at Suez, but with nume-
rous sidings to admit of ships passing one another,
all the details of execution having been carefully fore-
seen and discussed at this Congress, from which those
who are now making the canal cannot fail to derive
most useful lessons.

"When the Technical Commission had terminated
its works and fixed the figures at which it estimated
the cost of making and maintaining the canal, and
when, upon the other hand, the Economic Commis-
sion had laid before the Congress all the elements
required for calculating the transit, the fifth section,

THE IN1EROCEANIC CANAL. 197

that of Ways and Means, was able in turn to accom-
plish its part with these data for its guide. M. Cere-
sole, the ex-president of the Swiss Confederation, was
the president, and M. Chanel, the delegate of Mar-
tinique, was reporter, the judgment of the section
being : " We are convinced that the sum of the ele-
ments of transit, already amply sufficient to defray
the cost of the canal, is destined, as the work develops,
to expand to an incalculable extent."

The report went to show by what series of calcula-
tions the Commission had been led to fix the transit
dues at fifteen francs (12s.) per ton.

Going on to calculate the cost of construction, the
payment of interest, the annual cost of working and
of maintenance, and deducting the participations
reserved by the Act of Concession granted by the
Government of Colombia, the reporter, and with him
the Commission, estimated the net annual profit of the
canal at £1,680,000. And, finally, " to guard against
the risks and chances of the unknown," the Commis-
sion expressed their hope " that, even at the cost of
more time and money, the canal might be made with-
out locks or tunnels."

It is a very remarkable fact that the five Commis-
sions of the Congress should, without any pre-arranged
understanding, have expressed the same wish and
displayed their aversion for a canal with locks. But
this agreement of views simplified the remainder of
the proceedings. When, according to the mode of

1 98 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

procedure agreed upon, the five Commissions had
communicated the result of their deliberations, all that
the bureau of the Assembly had to do was to co-
ordinate these conclusions, in order to draw up and
submit to the Congress the resolution which was to
be the outcome of them.

IV.

" The Congress is of opinion that the cutting of an
interoceanic canal with one level, so desirable in the
interests of trade and navigation, is possible, and that
this maritime canal, in order to give the indispen-
sable facilities of access and use which a passage of
this kind must be supposed to give, should go from
the Gulf of Limon to the Bay of Panama."

Such was the form of resolution adopted by the
bureau and reinforced by the presidents, secretaries,
and reporters of the five Commissions. It was put to
the vote on May 29th, 1879, and out of ninety -eight
members present seventy- eight voted in its favour
and eight against, the twelve others abstaining. Such
was the majority which declared in favour of the
canal, recompensing the bold and persevering efforts
of our compatriots, Wyse and Eeclus. If we examine
the nature of the voting, we may see that there was
something like unanimity, for among those who voted
against the resolution, or did not vote at all, were the
representatives of the Northern States of Central
America, whose local sentiments were enlisted in

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 199

favour of the Nicaragua Canal. These included the
able constructor, who had been selected to make the
large lock of Nicaragua, and the president of the
association for cutting that canal, yet both of them
cheered the announcement of the vote.

It is characteristic that among those who gave in
their adhesion to the scheme were the Dutch engineer,
who had constructed the Amsterdam locks, Commander
Selfridge, who explicitly declared that his countrymen
would accept the decision of the Congress without
any reserve or afterthought, the engineers of the
Suez Canal, and many others whose statements were
enthusiastically cheered by the public.

The course which the Congress approved was that
which had been traced by Lloyd, Totten, Garella,
Wyse, and Keclus. It strikes the Isthmus at the
ninth parallel, between the Bay of Limon upon the
Atlantic and the Gulf of Panama on the Pacific.
It is not half as long as the Suez Canal, being only
45J miles long instead of 101 ; it has two excellent
ports at each end, is close to two good towns and to a
district thickly inhabited, and has a railway in full
working order. Such is the country which the canal
will traverse, transform, and enrich.

Carrying my mind back a few years, I cannot but
remember how many people — including several eminent
men, too — formerly treated the Suez enterprise as
impracticable. They said that it was madness to try
and create a port in the Gulf of Pelusium, to traverse

200 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the mud of Lake Mensaleh and the entrance to El-
Guisr, to pass through the sand banks of the desert,
and form workshops twenty-five leagues away from
any village, in a land which had no inhabitants, no
water, no roads, to fill up the basin of the Bitter
Lakes, and to prevent the sand from silting up in the
canal.

Yet all that was accomplished, at what a cost in
labour and perseverance I well know ; and I maintain
that the Panama will be easier to make, easier to com-
plete, and easier to keep up than the Suez Canal.

Nothing has occurred since 1879 to alter the aspect
of affairs from a material point of view, and it is not
for me to discuss here the motives of the eleventh
hour opposition, raised in order to prevent the success
of the subscription which, after the vote of the Con-
gress, it seemed to me opportune to open.

I will merely repeat what I said at the Academie
des Sciences : —

" The line from Colon to Panama can easily, accord-
ing to the latest data of science, be utilised for the
cutting of a salt-water canal on one level in preference
to any other route necessitating locks fed with fresh
water. The experience of the Suez Canal has shown
that, in order to ensure a considerable amount of
transit navigation, you must have a maritime canal as
free as a natural Bosphorus, and not a river canal,
subject to stoppages more or less lengthy, and only fit
for internal navigation."

THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 201

To this I may add what I said in a circular which
was published at the time : —

"The arguments of the opposition may be summed
up as follows : Upon the one hand the expenses have
been exaggerated and the receipts under-estimated, in
order to show that if the idea of opening a new mari-
time route to trade and to civilisation is good in itself,
the enterprise is financially bad. Upon the other hand,
an effort has been made to create uneasiness by repre-
senting the United States of North America to be
hostile to the scheme. The first argument has been
met by the able contractor who removed the bed of
El-Guisr, at the entrance to the Suez Canal. M.
Couvreux and his associates, who. are responsible for
the regulating of the course of the Danube, and for
enlarging the ports of Antwerp, are at this moment
engaged in investigating, at their own expense, the
work required for making the new canal. They have
determined to undertake to execute the work either
by contract or for a royalty, as I may prefer, and thus
to leave no doubt as to the real amount of the ex-
penses. "With regard to the second objection, I shall
solve that myself by an early voyage to America."*

Heer Dirks, the Dutch engineer who cut the canal
which connects Amsterdam with the sea, has ex-
pressed his surprise at what he terms "the malignant
attacks and anonymous notes inserted in various

* Note of the Translator. — This circular was issued several years
ago — in fact, before the work of cutting the canal had been begun.

VOL. II. P

202 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

papers," and adds : " All anonymous attacks are
worthless and condemn themselves, whereas a frank
and open opposition is of service to those who de-
serve it."

I may add that I have never been alarmed by the
obstacles thrown in the path of a great enterprise, nor
by the delays which discussion and contradictory
arguments entail, my experience having taught me
that what is accomplished too quickly has no deep
roots, and that "time hallows only that which he has
himself made."

CHAPTEE VIII.

STEAM.

THE expansive force of steam has long been known,
but its perfected use is of contemporary appli-
cation. In 1830, the French fleet which took part
in the Algerian expedition included 500 sailing
vessels of an average burden of 500 tons for a body
of 30,000 men, and one steamer, the Sphinx, of
160 tons.

In 1880, the number of vessels which went through
the Suez Canal, carrying 100,000 soldiers and as
many civilians, was 2,025, and they were of 4,344,465
tons burden, or 2,145 tons each.

After centuries of war and destruction, steam and
electricity seem likely to open an era of unlimited
progress, by multiplying the means of pacific com-
munications between the peoples of the earth. Let us
go back for a moment to the origin of the invention
of steam power and its various applications.

i.

England, as regards maritime navigation, and the
United States as regards fluvial navigation, having

p 2

20+ RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

anticipated France in the perfected use of the loco-
motive and the steamer, we are inclined to forget
that the real invention of machinery as applied to
navigation is due to two Frenchmen, Denis Papin
and Claude JoufFroy.

Aristotle and Seneca seem to have been the first
to suspect the expansive force of steam, for they
attributed earthquakes to the transformation of water
into steam by the subterranean fires, a theory which
quite fits in with the present teachings of science.
Seneca, more explicit still than Aristotle, compares
the volcanoes to boiling water running out over the
sides of a vessel under the action of fire. Four hun-
dred years after Aristotle, Seneca, in chapter vi. of
his Natural Questions, wrote : —

u Certain philosophers, while attributing earth-
quakes to fire, also ascribe to the latter another
action. Fire, they say, when lighted in several places
at once, carries with it abundant vapours, which,
having at first no outlet, communicate to the air
with which they mingle a great expansive force.
If the air, thus charged, acts Avith great energy,
it breaks down all obstacles ; if it is more mode-
rate in its power, it merely causes the ground to
quake.

"We see water boiling upon the hearth, and we
may be sure that if this limited phenomenon takes
place inside a vessel, it assumes tremendous propor-
tions when vast fires are acting upon vast masses of

STEAM. 205

water. These vaporised waters overcome all obstacles
and overturn everything upon their passage."

Hero of Alexandria, surnamed the Ancient, who
lived about 200 B.C., composed several works on
physics, only three of which are extant. The reacting
engine is defined and represented in the treatise
entitled, Spiritalia, seu Pneumatica.

Description of the Eolip//his ( Gate of Eolus).
BY HERO OF ALEXANDRIA.

This, after the fragment translated into French by
M. Egger, is described as follows : —

" A vessel being heated from underneath, a sphere
is made to turn upon its pivot. Or else a vessel con-
taining water, and with a lid over the orifice. To this
lid should be adjusted a tube bent so that one end of
it may be embedded in the side of a hollow sphere.
Opposite the end of the tube, and following the
diameter of the sphere, should be a pivot rising over
the lid ; let the sphere be fitted with two small bent
ajutages fixed to its side, according to a corresponding
diameter, and bent the reverse way the one from the
other. Suppose for a moment the elbows of the
ajutages upon the vertical plane. Thereupon, the
vase being heated, the vapour, ascending into the
sphere through the tube, will escape through the
ajutages of the elbows above the cover, and will make
the sphere move upon its axis, as is done with persons
asleep."

206 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

It is probable that Hero of Alexandria imitated the
procedure of the priests of ancient Egypt, who, it is
said, caused inanimate objects to move, or doors to
open and shut at their bidding, by means of tubes let
into the passages. Many tourists have seen the
colossal statue of Memnon, which emitted sounds
when struck by the sun's rays in the burning plain
of Thebes. The escape of the vapour caused by the
damp which had found its way in through the inter-
stices, and had been produced by the radiation of the
cold at night as well as by the abundant morning
dew, quite explains this phenomenon. At the base of
the monument may still be read inscriptions in prose
and in verse testifying to the wonder of the Greek
travellers.

There is now in the head of the Colossus a fissure
through which an Arab, for a small fee, will, after
having managed to climb up, pass his arm and
produce a metallic sound, by striking the hollow space
inside with a stone.

By way of a connecting link between the Greek
engineer Hero and modern authors, we have the
following passage from Eabelais, which Littre* quotes
in his Dictionary : —

"Eolipylus, gate of Eolus. It is a closed instru-
ment with an opening through which, if you place
water and put it near the fire, you will see wind
constantly pouring forth." — (Rabelais, notes on Book
4, chapter xliv.)

STEAM. 207

The Spanish archives of Simancas contain the fol-
lowing document :—

"Blasco cle Garay, sea captain, submitted, in 1543,
to the Emperor and King Charles Y., a machine for
propelling ships and large boats, even in calm weather,
without oars or sails. Despite the obstacles and diffi-
culties which the project encountered, the Emperor
ordered trial to be made of it in the port of Barcelona,
which trial took place on the 17th of June, in the
said year 1543.

" Garay would not entirely divulge his discovery.
But it was observed at the time of the trial that
his machine consisted of a large cauldron of boiling
water and of revolving wheels attached to both ends
of the vessel.

" An experiment was made on a 200-ton vessel called
the Trinity — Captain, Peter de Scarzo — which had just
arrived from Colibra with a cargo of wheat. By
order of Charles Y., Don Henry of Toledo, the Gover-
nor Don Peter of Cardona, the Treasurer Eavajo, the
Yice- Chancellor, and the High Steward of Catalonia
assisted at these experiments, and in their reports to
the Emperor they spoke approvingly of the invention.
The Treasurer Eavajo, however, who was opposed to
the project, said that the vessel would not travel more
than two leagues in three hours, that the machinery
was very complicated and expensive, and that there
was a great danger of the boiler bursting. The others
affirmed that the vessel put about as readily as a

208 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

galley manoeuvred in the ordinary way, and went at
least one league an hour. After the trial Garay took
away the whole of the machine, leaving only the wood-
work in the Barcelona arsenal. In spite of the opposi-
tion of Bavajo, the invention of Garay was approved
of, and but for the expedition in which Charles V. was
engaged standing in the way, he would no doubt have
favoured its adoption. As it was, the Emperor raised
him a step, made him a present of 200,000 maravedis,
and ordered the Treasury to pay all his expenses."

Arago, referring to this in his lecture to the
students of the Polytechnic School, said, " As Garay
would not show his machine to anyone, not even to
the commissioners appointed by the Emperor, it is of
course impossible, after the lapse of three centuries, to
say of what it consisted. The document, exhumed
from the archives of Simancas, in 1825, must be put
on one side, first, because it was never printed ; second,
because there is no evidence that the motive power of
the Barcelona boat was steam; and thirdly, because
if a Garay locomotive ever existed, it was to all appear-
ances the Eolipylus described in the works of Hero of
Alexandria."

Salomon de Caus is the author of a work entitled
Les Raisons des forces mouv antes avec diver ses machines
tant utiles queplaisantes. This work appeared at Frank-
fort in 1615, and it contains the following theorem
(No. 5) thus set forth : " Water will rise by means of
fire higher than its own level." The Marquis of "Wor-

STEAM. 209

cester, whom the English regard as the real inventor
of the fire-engine, lived in the reign of the Stuarts,
and having lost his immense fortune during the revo-
lutions of those times, he was cast into prison, but
escaped to Trance. Eeturning to England, he was
detected and shut up in the Tower of London. It is
said that "Worcester's idea as to the impulse which
steam could give originated in his remarking how the
lid of the saucepan in which his food was being cooked
was suddenly lifted up. A second edition of Salomon
de Caus's book had appeared in France while he was
residing there. Worcester's apparatus is thus de-
scribed in his book entitled A Century of Inventions:—

u I have discovered an admirable and very powerful
means of raising water by means of fire, not by
suction, for then, as the philosophers say, one would
be limited intra spheram activitatis^ as suction only
operates for a given distance. But there is no limit to
my means if the vessel is strong enough. By way of
trying it, I took a whole cannon, the mouth of which
had burst, and three parts filling it with water, I closed
the end which had burst and the touch-hole with screws.
I kept up a very strong fire inside, and in twenty-four
hours the gun broke up with a loud report."

Denis Papin (1690-1695).— The machines of Salo-
mon de Caus and the Marquis of Worcester were
merely apparatus for raising water. This was the
first object which Papin had in view with his engine,
but at the same time he had quite seen that the up

zio RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS,

and down movement of the piston on the body of the
pump could be applied to other uses. I may perhaps
be permitted to quote in this connection a few extracts
from a speech which I made at Elois on behalf of the
Academic des Sciences, at the inauguration of Papin's
statue on the 29th of August, 1880.

I said: "The great inventions destined to change
the face of humanity rarely enter the domain of accom-
plished facts until they have passed through what may
be regarded as a providential network of experiments?
which may be isolated, but which are summed up and
applied by the close researches of a man who is at once
perspicacious and disinterested, who knows no guide
but science, and who has no object but that of being
useful to humanity, disregarded of the atmosphere of
errors and prejudices amid which his discoveries are
conceived and put in action.

" Denis Papin was one of these exceptional men.
The following is the summary of his labours and dis-
coveries : —

" 1674-1709. Perfecting and modifying the pneu-
matic engine.

"1681. Apparatus known in the present day as
Papin's digester, autoclave, etc. The guidance of
steam. Safety valve.

"1685. Discovery of the principle of air-pressure
syphons.

" 1687. Discovery of atmospheric locomotion.

"1695. Fumivorous apparatus, or apparatus for the

STEAM. 211

combustion of smoke. Doubly exhausting stop cocks,
of which "Watt and Leopold have made one of the
principal features in the high-pressure steam-engines,
where the barrel might be used for other purposes.
He also discovered a method for transforming the
reciprocating motion into a rotary motion. Papin
invented the first piston engine. He was the first to
note that vapour of water affords a very simple
means for obtaining a vacuum in the capacity of the
barrel. He was the first to whom it occurred to
combine in the same engine the action of the elastic
force of steam with the power which, as he pointed
out, this same vapour possesses of condensing itself as
it cools."

Captain Savery, an Englishman, who lived at the
end of the seventeenth century, made some inventions
in the same line, which are referred to by Arago as
under : —

" We have no proof that Salomon de Caus ever
constructed his steam-engine. I might say the same
of the Marquis of Worcester. Papin's engine in
which the action of the steam and its condensation
are successively brought into play was only executed
in miniature and with a view to make an experi-
mental trial of the exactitude of the principle upon
which it was based. So that although there was
nothing very new in Savery's steam-engines, it
would be very unjust not to mention them, as they
are really the first which were put into practical

212 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

use. According to Salomon de Cans' s plan the
motive steam was to be engendered in the vessel
containing the water and by means of this same
water. In Savery 's engine there were two separate
chambers, one containing the water and the other,
which may be called the boiler, the steam. This
steam, when a sufficient quantit}7 has been generated,
finds its way to the upper part of the water chamber
by a communicating tube which can be opened at will
by means of a tap. It exercises a downward pressure
upon the liquid surface, and forces it back into a
vertically ascending tube, the lower orifice of which
must always be beneath this surface, for otherwise
the steam itself would escape.

"In Salomon de Caus's engine, as soon as the
presence of the steam has produced its effect, a work-
man has to make good the water which has been
driven out by means of an orifice in the upper part of
the metallic sphere which opens and shuts at discre-
tion. All that then remains to be done is to keep the
fire going. In Savery's engine the water is let in, not
by a workman, but by atmospheric pressure.

" In short, Savery sought to utilise steam for driv-
ing water into a vertical tube, but Salomon de Cans
had done precisely the same thing eighty-three years
before. Savery, again, effected the vacuum which
brought about the suction by the cooling of the steam.
This was a very important matter, but Denis Papin
had long before drawn attention to it."

S1EAM. 213

SUMMARY.

1615. Salomon de Caus was the first who conceived
the idea of utilising the elastic force of vapour of
water in the construction of an hydraulic pumping
engine.

1690. Papin conceived the possibility of making a
steam and piston engine. He was the first to combine
in one and the same steam and piston engine the
elastic force of vapour of water with the precipitating
property which steam acquires through cold.

1705. Newcomen, Cawley, and Savery were the
first to see that in order to effect a rapid precipitation
of vapour of water, the injected water must find its
way into the mass of steam in the shape of very
small drops.

1769. Watt explained the immense advantages,
from an economical point of view, obtained by sub-
stituting for the condensation which had hitherto
been effected in the barrel of the engine condensa-
tion in a separate chamber. He was the first to point
out the advantage which might be derived from the
expansion of the vapour of water.

Chaillot's steam pump was made after his plans in
the workshops of the brothers Perrier.

1783. Jouffroy, in the presence of thousands of
spectators, made the first trial of a paddle-wheel
steam-boat, which he had constructed himself, and
which went up and down the river Saone, between

2i4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Lyons and the He Barbe. This steamer was 150 feet
long by 14^ feet in diameter, with a draught of
rather over 3 feet of water, and a speed of two leagues
an hour.

1801. The first locomotive high-pressure engines
made by Messrs. Trewithiet and Vivian, Englishmen.

1807. Fulton applies steam navigation to the great
American rivers.

n.

Papin must be considered the first inventor of the
steam-engine and of the idea of applying it to naviga-
tion. But his first attempt could not be practically
tested owing to the destruction of his machine by the
populace before the experiment took place, and the
glory of having executed the first steamer which ever
navigated a stream belongs to Claude de Jouffroy.
This young nobleman of the Franche-Comte belonged
to a class which, especially in his neighbourhood, set
but scant store by scientific studies. "With a few excep-
tions, the country nobility had a horror of any kind of
trade. The scientific tastes of Claude de Jouffroy, the
singular aptitude with which nature had endowed
him, were a source of annoyance to him at home. He
was laughed at in the drawing-rooms of his neigh-
bours and nicknamed " Jouffroy the Pump." Even
at Court, where the report of his experiments had
preceded him, people pointed him out to one another,
and said: "Do you know this young man of the

STEAM. 215

Franche-Comte, who embarks steam engines upon
rivers, this lunatic who would have us believe that
he can marry fire and water ? "

In order to escape from the yoke of the prejudices
which surrounded him, Claude de Jouffroy determined
to take service in the artillery, so that he might be
able to utilise the experience which he had gained.
But there was a great outcry at this, for the nobility
at this period considered it derogatory to enter that
branch of the service, leaving the artillery and engi-
neers to the middle classes. Having been a page to
the Dauphin's wife, and having entered at the age of
twenty the Bourbon regiment as sub-lieutenant, he
had a duel with his colonel. He was then exiled for
two years to the island of St. Marguerite, opposite
Cannes. During his enforced leisure, while watching
the galleys and their oarsmen, he was struck by the
drawbacks of this mode of navigation, and conceived
the idea that the use of steam as a motive power might
obviate it. When his exile was over, in 1775, he went
to Paris, where the brothers Perrier had just founded
a large establishment, and had imported from Birming-
ham one of Watt's engines, known in France as the
"Pompe a feu de Chaillot."

Jouffroy met in Paris two men from his own district,
soldiers like himself, the Comte d' Auxiron and the Mar-
quis Ducrest, colonel in the Auvergne regiment, brother
of Madame de Genlis, member of the Academic des
Sciences, and author of a work on mechanics. Count

216 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

d'Auxiron encouraged him strongly to persevere, and
wrote to him from his deathbed, " Be of good cheer,
my dear friend. You alone are right ! "

Jouifroy, having no influence in Paris, went back to
his own province, where, full of confidence in the
future of his idea, left to his own resources, and
having no guide save his own persevering studies, and
no other workman than a village tinker, he succeeded,
in 1776, in constructing a machine which he adapted
to a boat. This first steamer was about forty-two feet
long by seven feet broad, and the floating apparatus
consisted in rods about eight feet in length, suspended
upon each side of the forepart of the vessel, and having
at their extremities chains fitted with movable two-
feet wooden flaps. The chains described a radius of
eight feet, and a lever fitted with a counterweight kept
them in their place. A single Watt engine fixed in the
centre of the boat set the articulated oars in motion.
The construction of this apparatus, in a place where it
was impossible to procure drilled cylinders, was a work
of genius, courage, and patience ; and, despite its im-
perfections, the apparatus was superior to anything
which had hitherto been proposed for navigating pur-
poses. The boat was in use on the river Doubs, at
Baume-les-Dames, between Montbeliard and Besancon,
during the months of June and July.

Somewhere about 1780 Jouflroy came to Lyons, in
the hope of obtaining the funds required for perfecting
his invention, and while there he married Mdlle. Made-

STEAM. 21 7

leine de Yallier, and fitted up a fresh, apparatus in the
smithy of the Messrs. Frerejean.

The dimensions of this second boat were, as already
stated, very much larger than those of the first, and
in it he ascended the current of the Saone, from
Lyons to the He Barbe, on July 15th, 1783, in the
presence of a committee of savants and of thousands
of spectators.

After repeating his experiments with unvarying
success, Jouffroy entered into partnership with MM.
de Follenay, Auxiron, and Vedel, with the view of
founding a steam navigation company for the con-
veyance of passengers and goods, first of all upon the
Saone, and afterwards upon the Khone and the other
navigable rivers of France. Another financial com-
pany offered to join him, upon condition that the
founders would secure for it the privilege of working
the enterprise for a period of thirty years.

This privilege was not secured, as appears from a
letter which M. de Calonne wrote from Versailles on
January 21st, 1784. The boat continued to ply on the
Saone for sixteen months, and was then abandoned.

Jouffroy was completely ruined during the Eevolu-
tion, but in 1815 he obtained a patent for invention
and improvement, and built a boat named Charles-
Philippe, after the Comte d' Artois, which was launched
upon the Seine on April 20th, 1817, in the presence
of the Comte d'Artois, his sons, the Paris municipal
authorities, a great number of learned men, and a

VOL. II. Q

218 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

crowd of spectators. All promised well for the pros-
perity of the enterprise, when a rival company in
turn obtained a patent, disputed Jouffroy's claim to
priority, and brought from England a boat fitted with
their engines. The competition in a mode of naviga-
tion against which prejudice was still so strong proved
disastrous to both companies.

Jouffroy, whose faith in the future of steam naviga-
tion was not to be shaken, once more retired to his
native district to get together the means for starting
a fresh society, and, with the help of a few intelligent
friends, he succeeded in forming a capital of £960,
divided into twenty-four shares of £40 each. This
small capital was spent in the construction of a steamer
called the Per sever ant. Upon July 8th, 1819, the part-
ners agreed to constitute a capital of £8,000 for the
construction of several steamers, so as to organise a
regular service. The Perseverant plied for several
months between Lyons and Chalons. Prejudice and
conflicting interests prevented the creation of the re-
quired capital, not that anyone denied that this mode
of transport was speedy, but they urged that naviga-
tion was impossible on the Ehone and full of obstacles
on the Saone, owing to shallowness of the stream, and
that the powerful Compagnie Ge'nerale des Transports
would not stop at anything to put down competition.
So great were the obstacles in the way of steam naviga-
tion at Lyons, even twelve years after it was prospering
in America, and after Henry Bell had overcome the

STEAM. 219

prejudices which marked its introduction upon the
coasts of the United Kingdom.

In this same year (1819) Captain Moses Eoger
crossed the Atlantic, from New York to Liverpool, in
a compound sailing and steam vessel of 380 tons.

Foreign capitalists gathered, even in France, the
fruit of the labours upon which Jouffroy had far half
a century concentrated all the resources of his genius
and his fortune.

In the year following, Steel, an English builder,
launched upon the Seine a steamer provided with an
articulated oar or goose-foot, after the first system
tried by Jouffroy. Two years later, an English com-
pany brought two iron steamers into France. In
1825, a compound English steamer made a voyage
from Falmouth to Calcutta, and a Dutch boat of the
same kind went from Amsterdam to the West Indies.
From 1825 to 1830 nearly all the navigable rivers
and ports of France used steam-boats.

The problem of the employment of steam for trans-
atlantic voyages was definitely settled in 1830 by the
passage of the Great Western (1,300 tons) from
Bristol to New York, and by that of the Syrius (700
tons) from Cork to New York.

What, it may be asked, had become of Jouffroy
while all this progress was being made ? In 1829
he lost the wife whose goodness of heart and intelli-
gence had consoled him during these forty-six years
for all his disappointments, and, unable to endure the

Q2

220 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

solitude which her death inflicted on him, he liqui-
dated his retiring pension as captain in the army, and
got admitted to the Hotel des Invalides, where he
died of cholera in 1832, at the age of eighty-one,
leaving to his children no other inheritance than the
example of the laborious life which his eldest son so
loyally followed.

FULTON.

At the close of the last century, a young American,
who had heen at school while the "War of Indepen-
dence was in progress, came to study art, for which
he showed great aptitude, in France, although he had
no special genius for invention, he was endowed with
great readiness in the study of mechanical discoveries,
and with a perseverance which no rebuff could retire.

Of Irish origin, and born at Little Britain (Penn-
sylvania) in 1765 of parents who had emigrated in
a state of great poverty, Eobert Fulton was first
apprenticed to a jeweller, and afterwards to a painter.
At twenty years of age he left America and passed
ten years in England, where he devoted himself
entirely to the study of mechanics, coming to Paris
in 1796. For five years he concentrated his attention
upon submarine navigation, and upon the means of
exploding at a given point boxes filled with gun-
powder, so as to blow up vessels on the water.

The French Government refusing to adopt this
invention, Fulton was about returning to America,

STEAM. 221

when lie met Chancellor Livingston, then Ambas-
sador of the United States in Paris, who was then
studying the question of steam navigation in the
company of an Englishman named Nisbett and the
French engineer Brunei, who afterwards made the
Thames Tunnel. Livingston undertook to find the
necessary funds for establishing steam navigation in
America, and Fulton, after making a study of the
previous essays, decided to adopt the paddle-wheel.
Experiments made on the Seine (August 9th, 1803),
before a committee of the Academic des Sciences,
proved a complete success, but Napoleon refused to
let the question come before the Academy, for, as
England at that period alone had large workshops for
the construction of the machinery, she would have
benefited by the invention long before France would
be in a position to utilise it. Moreover, Fulton
frequently stated that it was his intention to establish
steam navigation upon the broad American rivers,
and not on what he called the rivulets of France. A
steam-engine ordered by Livingston and Fulton,
unknown to Bolton and Watt, in 1804, was only
ready in October, 1806, upon which date Fulton
sailed for New York, and launched his boat on the
East Eiver. When his success in the States was
placed beyond all question, the priority of his claim
was disputed, and the worry of the lawsuit un-
doubtedly hastened his death, which occurred when
he was only fifty, on February 24th, 1815. The

222 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

legislature went into mourning for him for a month,
but his family was left very badly off.

Fulton never questioned Claude de Jouffroy's
priority in the practical invention of steam navigation,
and when his fellow-citizens ascribed it to him he
wrote to Paris and disclaimed it. To both of them
alike all honour and gratitude are due.

The Academie des Sciences has recently, at the
request of Mdlle. Marthe de Jouffroy, the grand-
daughter of the illustrious inventor, appointed a
committee to examine the question as to whether her
grandfather is not entitled to some mark of national
recognition ; and this commission unanimously agreed
to associate itself with the municipality of BesanQon,
in erecting a statue to one whose discovery was
turned to material advantage by the foreigner, but
which is none the less one of the glories of France.

CHAPTEE IX.

ALGERIA AND TUNIS.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

IN order to obtain the great advantages which the
possession of Algeria insures to France, we must
consider the difficulties or facilities which the cha-
racter and habits of the Mussulman Arabs offer,
regarded from the point of view of European civilisa-
tion.

I am not speaking of the results which must be
attributed to Algeria in the military education of our
army, of what relates to life in the open, the aptitude
for enduring fatigue and privation, the value to our
soldiers of struggles which, as in the Middle Ages,
have an individual character. I am thinking more of
the novel moral dispositions derived in Algeria from
contact with the native populations.

In the early days of the conquest, the duty and the
constant preoccupation of the French authorities were
loyally to carry out the Convention of Algiers, which
guaranteed to the Arabs that they should be allowed
the free exercise of their religion, that their habits

224 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

should be respected, and that they should be left in
full enjoyment of their properties. The Arabs had
struggled long and manfully against our rule, and it
was to be feared that the war would leave feelings of
rancour and prejudice in the breasts of those who
might be appointed to administer the tribes after the
pacification. But, by a happy selection, the army
which had vanquished the natives was entrusted with
the duty of governing them. It had learnt to appre-
ciate what was honourable in their character ; it had
become initiated into their habits and language, and
had opened its ranks to a large number of Mussulman
soldiers. It was, therefore, in a position to fulfil the
duty allotted to it not only with justice but, to its
credit we may add, with generous sympathy for the
vanquished.

"Without being blind to the radical difference in
feeling and aptitude which mark the two races, we
have proved that there is no inseparable barrier
between the Mussulman Arabs and ourselves, and
that civilised Europe need not look upon them as
incorrigible barbarians.

The Arabs who serve under our flag have gained a
brilliant position side by side with our bravest troops.
Under the conduct of the able officers who managed
the Arab bureau, they built houses which they gra-
dually began to inhabit ; they planted trees, con-
structed dams, extended their areas of cultivation,
improved their roads, and took the first steps towards

ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 225

the constitution of well-regulated civil life. When
once we entrusted them with arms, the teaching and
the example of the intrepid and kindly - disposed
officers placed in command soon made excellent
soldiers of them. When we shall have given them
well-selected industrial leaders we shall derive im-
mense benefits from the labour of these quick-witted
Algerian races.

But in order to succeed it is indispensable to treat
the Mahometans with the kindness and sympathy due
to men whom we shall some day have to make French
citizens. There has ceased to be any irreconcilable
hatred between the Eastern and Western races ; and
it is for France to organise and administer with equity
the Mussulmans subject to her authority. Fanaticism
against the Christians no longer exists except among
the Turks, for the Arab race, which follows the
practices of Islam in all their purity, and according to
the precepts of the Koran, regards as infidels the
idolaters, and not the Christians.

France has governed Mussulmans for more than
fifty years, and though many people regard them as
subjects who are not upon equal terms with the
French political family, I consider it as a civic duty
not to withhold from them our solicitude and esteem.
It would be very inconsistent for us to treat the Maho-
metans of Algeria as rayahs when we are urging the
Sultan to emancipate the rayahs of the East.

We must not, in our relation with the Mahometans

226 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

of Algeria, lose sight of the real views of their apostle
in regard to the Christians — views expressed in the
Koran, though the meaning of them has been changed
by fanatic commentators. The proclamations which
Mahomet addressed to his compatriots, and which
have become chapters of the Koran, applied princi-
pally to the tribes of the Arabian peninsula, who
were given over to idolatry. He enjoined them to
respect the belief in the one God.

We read in chap. ii. verse 59: " Assuredly they
who believe and practise the Jewish religion, and
the Christians ; in a word, all who believe in
God and do good works shall receive the reward
of the Lord; fear shall not fall upon them, and
they shall not be afflicted." Verse 25: "No con-
straint in matters of religion. The right path is
easily distinguished from the way of perdition.''
Chap. iii. verse 78 : " We believe in God, in what he
has sent us, in what he has revealed to Abraham,
Ismail, Jacob, and the twelve tribes; we believe in
the Holy Books which Moses, Jesus, and the prophets
received from heaven. We make no distinction
between them. We are resigned to the will of God."
Verse 98: "The Jews and the Christians believe in
God. They order all to do good and forbid that
which is evil. They vie in good works, and they are
virtuous. Chap. iv. verse 16: "But the men of
solid learning among the Jews and the Christians, as
well as the faithful, which believe in that which has

ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 227

been revealed to thee and before thee, those who make
prayer and give alms, who believe in God and in the
day of judgment, to all them will we grant a glorious
reward." Chap. v. verse 7 : " This day you are per-
mitted to do all that which is good ; you are per-
mitted to espouse the virtuous daughters of the
faithful, and of them who have received the Scriptures
before, provided that you give them a dowry."
Verse 51 : " Let those who hold to the Gospel judge
according to its contents. Those who do not judge
according to a book of God shall be impious." Chap,
xxix. verse 45 : "Do not enter upon any controversy
with the men of the Scriptures, save in the most be-
coming manner, unless it be with the wicked. Say : We
believe in the books which have been sent us, as well
as in those which have been sent to you. Our God
and your God are one. We submit ourselves wholly
to his will." Chap. v. verse 35 : " He who shall kill
a man who has committed no murder or done no
wrong in a country, the same shall be regarded as the
murderer of the whole human race, and he who shall
have given back a man his life shall be regarded as
having given back the life of the whole human race."
It will be seen from these quotations that Mahomet
never anathematised the faith sanctioned by the
Pentateuch or the New Testament. He never spoke
of Moses or Jesus save in the terms of the utmost
veneration; he never refused his benevolent protec-
tion to Christian priests and monks ; he never com-

228 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

manded intolerance or set an example of fanaticism.
Before he began to preach, at the time when he was
sent by his first wife, who was older than himself, to
trade in Syria, he was the guest of the monks in the
Holy Land, and he received the teaching, especially
in matters of religion, from the monks who kept
watch over the Holy Sepulchre. On returning to
Arabia, he spent some time on Mount Sinai ; and he
was so grateful for the way he was treated during his
twelve months' stay there, that he left with the
Patriarch a document, at the foot of which he placed
his hand dipped in ink by way of a signature. This
document conveyed a grant to the Patriarch of Mount
Sinai of certain privileges and of various properties in
the region one day to be conquered by Islam. The
grant was recognised as valid after the establishment
of the Turks at Constantinople, and it is deposited in
the Treasury at Stamboul. The concessions granted
by Mahomet were carried out, and this was what
made the Patriarchate of Sinai the wealthiest religions
establishment in the East. Among the concessions
granted by the Prophet was the produce of the cus-
toms at Suez. I discovered this little-known fact in
the following manner. One day Said Pasha, the
Viceroy of Egypt, who had granted me the conces-
sion, told me that he had purchased from the Patriarch
of Sinai the Suez customs, which would, he added, be
a profitable transaction if our enterprise succeeded.
Mahomet, in enjoining hostility against the infidels,

ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 229

that is to say, against the idolaters, had solely in view
the pacification of Arabia.

In the seventh year of the Hegira, three years
before his death, he meditated propagating the Islam
faith beyond the frontiers of Arabia.

" The Mussulmans," says Eabasson, in his " His-
toire de Charles Quint," " are the only enthusiasts
who, by taking up arms to propagate the doctrine of
their Prophet, have enabled those who refused to
receive it to remain attached to the practices of their
own worship."

When the Mahometans went to besiege Jerusalem,
the Holy City offered a long and obstinate resistance.
Finding at last that they could hold out no longer,
the Christians agreed to capitulate, upon con-
dition that they should treat with the Caliph in
person. Omar, who had succeeded Abu-Bekr, the
father-in-law and successor of the Prophet, having
left Medina as soon as he was informed of this, pro-
ceeded to Djabia, where the Jerusalem delegates came
to see him. He granted them the free exercise of
their religion, and confirmed them in the possession
of their churches. The Patriarch Sophronius re-
ceived, upon entering Jerusalem, the chief of the
Mussulmans, who, by the simplicity of his costume
and the austerity of his life resembled more one of
those Christian anchorites and dwellers in the desert
than the prince of a people already famous for its vic-
tories. Omar went through several quarters of the

230 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

city, with his hand linked in that of the Patriarch,
and discoursing- familiarly with him. The hour of
prayer having come, he withdrew to the steps of the
eastern portico of the church of Constantine, fearing
that if he prayed inside the church the Mahometans
would seize it and convert it into a mosque. Passing
through Bethlehem, he prayed in the church built over
the grotto where Jesus was born. But to prevent it-
being taken away from the Christians, he left a
written order forbidding the Mussulmans to pray in
it more than one at a time.

In Africa, the same spirit of moderation marked
the progress of the Islam faith. When it made its
appearance among the many heresies which were dis-
gracing the African Church, it was regarded not so
much as a new religion as a Christian sect. The
partisans of Arius welcomed it almost, and it
spread without persecution or violence among the
barbarous tribes relegated to the southern countries
after the recent invasions which had swept across
Africa.

In Algeria, the Mussulmans must be treated as
fellow-citizens, entitled to equal rights and equal
respect, while in the East they must treat us as we
treat their brethren in Algeria. What nonsense has
been written about the intractable fanaticism of the
Algerian Arabs ! How often Abd-el-Kader has been
represented as an implacable sectary ! The people
who made these accusations had never lived among

ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 231

the Mussulmans, or their acquaintance was limited to
those who inhabited the towns, where the pre-
sence of the French had revolutionised all their
habits of life, increased the friction, and engendered
profound antipathy.

The opinion of those who have been in constant
communication with the Arabs is, as a rule, very dif-
ferent. They have understood that fanaticism had
not nearly so much to do with the resistance of the
Arabs as patriotism. Eeligion was the only flag
around which they could rally and concentrate their
efforts, and it indisputably has been a powerful stimu-
lant for inducing them to confront the perils of an
unequal struggle, to support the evils of war, ruin,
exile, and misery, though since December, 1847,
when Abd-el-Kader declared it impossible to continue
resistance, religion has not been for an instant an
obstacle in the way of pacification. The exhausted
tribes have accepted French rule ; the so-called fanati-
cism has disappeared, as if by enchantment, in the
course of the relations which ensued on the establish-
ment of peace ; the taxes have been regularly paid*;
and the chiefs invested with authority have been uni-
versally obeyed.

This is not the place to explain the causes which
have, on various occasions, interrupted these friendly
dispositions, and led to severe repression, but some-
thing may surely be forgiven this grand people if
they exhibit some little mistrust and irritability against

23 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the conquerors of their country. After having com-
bated them with the utmost energy, we cannot but
esteem them. Time, which heals so many wounds, is
speeding onward ; a sincere respect for their religion
and customs, great equity in our administration, and
a constant solicitude for the welfare of the people and
for their education, will aid us to conquer their hearts,
just as the bravery of our soldiers has overcome their
armed resistance.

I have mentioned the name of Abd-el-Kader. Those
who knew him during his captivity and in Syria,
where he saved the Christians from Turkish barbarity,
have admired the noble simplicity of his manners, the
even benevolence of his disposition, and the loftiness
of his mind and ideas.

He preserved his prestige undiminished, and when-
ever he came forward to express tolerant feelings in
the face of Europe, it was with the conviction that he
would not lose the confidence of his co-religionists.

A few years ago I wrote to ask him to send me a
circular, which had been addressed to all the Arab
chiefs of the region in which the late Commander
Eoudaire was about to conduct his researches with
regard to the formation of an inland sea in the Tunisian
and Algerian chotts. His letters of recommendation
proved very useful, and facilitated the accomplish-
ment of M. Roudaire's mission ; and I trust that this
scheme, calculated to effect the pacification of Southern
Algeria and Tunis, will be carried out.

ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 233

Subjoined are some extracts from an Arab work
which Abd-el-Kader addressed a few years ago to the
French Asiatic Society : —

" All the prophets, from Adam to Mahomet, are
agreed upon the fundamental points : they have all
proclaimed the unity of God, and the duty of paying
him worship. . . . There is one point common to
all — that of proclaiming respect for the divinity and
charity towards His creatures. The modifications
which have occurred, at different epochs, relate to
principles of emergency, to matters which vary
according to circumstances. Just as a doctor may
prescribe one potion one day, and another the next,
in the same way it may be said that a religion is good
for the epoch in which it was revealed. Mahomet
said, <I am not come to abolish the Pentateuch or
the Gospel, but to supplement them. The Pentateuch
contains external directions appropriate for the masses;
the Gospel contains inward directions specially in-
tended for those who seek perfection. I admit both
the one and the other ; I maintain the lex talionis,
which is a guarantee for the security of human life.
So much for the external and general directions. At
the same time I enjoin pardon for injuries received as
an excellent means for being pleasing in the sight of
God. So much for the inward and special precepts.'

" It will be seen that in reality these three religions
are but one, and that the divergences between them
are only on points of detail. One may compare them

VOL. II. R

234 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

to children of the same father by different mothers.
If the Mussulmans and Christians will be guided by
my advice, they will live in harmony and treat each
other as brethren, in speech as well as in outward
form."

The foregoing observations and quotations are made
by me with the view of contributing to the pacifica-
tion of Algeria, which we hold by virtue of a conquest
which half a century's expenditure of blood and money
has legitimised.

"With regard to Tunis, it is henceforward united
to France, under the sovereignty of the reigning
family, by the ties of a vassalage which dates,
morally speaking, from the conquest of Algeria, and,
materially, from the day when the Government of this
territory, which is wedged in, as it were, between our
possessions, endeavoured to shake itself free from our
preponderating influence.

I am one of the earliest participators in our constant
policy in this respect. Going back to the capture of
Algeria in 1830, 1 will recall an incident not generally
known or remembered. As soon as our troops had
taken possession of the provinces of Algeria and Gran,
the Government which succeeded that of Charles X.
declared in favour of a partial occupation. It was
then that my father, Mathieu de Lesseps, Consul-
General and Charge d' Affaires, with whom I was
serving as student-consul, bethought himself of ask-
ing the Bey of Tunis to authorise his brother and heir

ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 235

to accept the Beylicate of Constantine, under the
authority of France, and in consideration of a tribute
guaranteed by Tunis. Taking with me this treaty,
concluded ad referendum, signed by the Bey and the
representative of France, I went with it to Marshal
Clauzel, the Governor- General of Algeria, who ap-
proved its terms. Various circumstances prevented its
ratification in Paris, but it none the less remained
on record from this date that we could not under
any circumstances allow the Bey of Tunis to place
himself under the effective dominion of Turkey or any
other Power, to the detriment of the security of our
Algerian possessions.

CHAPTEE X.

ABD-EL-ZADER.

I HAVE spoken in the previous chapter of Abd-el-
Kader, who for thirteen years maintained so
gallant a struggle against the best of our African
generals, until, hemmed in by superior force, he was
compelled to surrender to General Lamoriciere.

I will not attempt to describe his career in the field,
but I am in a position to give some particulars as to
the life he led after he had become our prisoner.
When on my way to the Madrid Embassy in 1848, I
stopped on the way at the Chateau de Pan, where
Abd-el-Kader and the whole of his family were de-
tained, I had never seen him before, and I was struck
by his air of nobility and resignation. He spoke
highly of the bravery and generosity of our army, and
showed himself resolved to serve France as effectually
by his moral influence as he had combated her
bravely sword in hand. He was to his very last hour
faithful to his promise. His conduct during the
Syrian massacres in 1866 checked the excesses of the
Mahometan fanaticism* Surrounded by his sons, he

ABD-EL-KADER. 237

constituted himself the protector of the Christian
population of Damascus, and his services were recog-
nised with the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. In
the year following, while travelling in Syria to get
together labourers for the Suez Canal, I sent a mes-
sage from Jerusalem to inform the Emir that I pro-
posed to come and pay him a visit at Damascus, the
inhabitants of which were reported to be still very
hostile to Europeans. He came out to meet me as
soon as my caravan was within sight, and made me
mount beside him in his carriage. We then drove
through the city, the inhabitants, who were drawn
up in long lines outside their houses, prostrating
themselves before him to the ground, and I spent
several days there, being treated with great kindness.

It will be remembered that Abd-el-Kader came to
Paris in the Exhibition year (1867), and was, with all
the sovereigns of Europe, the guest of the Emperor.
In 1869 he left Damascus to greet the Empress at
Port Said, and to be present with her at the opening
of the Suez Canal, when the French frigate Forbin
was placed at his disposal.

Abd-el-Kader prolonged his stay in the Isthmus,
where the Suez Canal Company gave him the use of
the domain of Bir-abu-Ballah, at the entrance to the
valley of Goshen, near Ismailia. One of our surveyors
of works had built a pleasant house there, with
gardens and land reclaimed from the desert. This
territory formed part of the vast domain of Pithom,

238 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

which had been purchased by the Canal Company,
and upon the 25,000 acres of which ten thousand
Arabs were already employed.

My intention was to obtain Abd-el-Kader's consent
to superintend the cultivation of the 150,000 acres
which had been conceded to us to the west of the
Canal, from Lake Timsah to Suez, and through which
we had already cut a sweet-water canal. But the
policy which had in vain endeavoured to prevent the
execution of the maritime canal still continued to
stimulate the suspicions of the Viceroy of Egypt, who
begged me to abandon my scheme, which I did with
the concurrence of Abd-el-Kader, whose behaviour
was, as usual, very loyal and disinterested.

When Commander Eoudaire was charged by the
Trench Government with the mission of completing
his researches as to the possibility of making an in-
land African sea, Abd-el-Kader, as I have already
mentioned, sent a circular to the Arab chiefs, enjoin-
ing them to assist him. And when I recently under-
took a voyage of discovery to the same region, the
Emir sent me a fresh message, which may be regarded
as a noble testament on his part, for he intended it
to help to pacify our African possessions, and to attach
to us by links of kindness the three million Mussul-
mans who are subject to our laws.

"Praise to the only God !

" Abd-el-Kader ben Mahiddin, to all the Arab

ABD-EL-KADER. 239

tribes inhabiting Tunis, and more especially to their
ulemas, sheiks, and religious and military chiefs.

" Salutation to you, with the mercy and blessing of
God!

" While forming my wishes for your prosperity,
and wishing you well in all that concerns the welfare
of the body and soul, I take it as my bounden duty to
give you the following counsel.

" The French Company which formed the project
of piercing the Isthmus of Gabes, and concerning
which I have already spoken to you, has now deter-
mined to put the work into execution, and to pay a
visit to your neighbourhood. It is to be hoped, nay,
it is your bounden duty, to see that these strangers
meet with from you a most favourable welcome,
generosity, encouragement, and assistance, both by
word and deed.

u Do not lend the ear to those who erroneously
imagine that the piercing of the Isthmus of Gabes
is contrary to the interests of the country and of
its inhabitants. These are false conjectures, and
those who believe in them are ignorant people. More-
over, if it be God's will that this enterprise should be
carried out it will be, however little it may be
expected.

" It was thus that God permitted the piercing of
the Isthmus of Suez, the benefits of which are now
being reaped by humanity.

"In short, this French Company, the object of

240 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

which is to ameliorate the land by increasing its
fertility and diminishing the extent of waste land,
will do no harm to any one, and in the event of its
requiring a field, a garden, or a house, it will pay for
them a much higher price than they are worth.
Moreover, Providence utilises this Company, which is
by itself very powerful, thanks to the riches which
God has granted it for the good and benefit of His
creatures.

"It is for this that the Company is about to make
great efforts, and spend immense sums in order to
benefit the creatures of God. It is true that the
Company will gain some fruit from its labours, but is
it not also the creature of Allah ?

" So it is with the king when he is just and good.
Although he is the chief of his subjects, and placed
in a position higher than they are (seeing that upon
him depend the fertilisation of the country and the
suppression of waste lands), he is in reality only the
servitor of his subjects, and his duty is to seek to do
them all the good he can, and guard them from all
that is hurtful.

"For those who labour to this end a great reward
is promised in heaven, but if they seek an earthly
reward God will grant it to them here below ; but if
they seek a heavenly reward God will grant it to
them in the other world.

"A prophet of the Israelites said, ' The kings of
the Persians are heathens and fire-worshippers ; they

ABD-EL-KADER. 241

have been loaded by Thee with good things. They
adore another than Thee, and yet Thou leavest them
their kingdom and givest them long life.'

" And God said unto him, i These people have made
my land to prosper, so that my creatures can live
therein with comfort. This is why I have left them
their kingdom and granted them long life.7

' ( The prophet David built the holy temple at Jeru-
salem, but so it was that no sooner had he built the
house than it fell to the ground. And God said unto
him : i Because thou hast shed blood abundantly, and
hast made great wars, thou shalt not build an house
unto my name.' *

" < But, 0 Lord ! ' replied David, < is it not for Thy
glory?'

" ' Yes,' replied the Lord; 'but are they not my
creatures whom thou hast slain ? '

" Thus men are of the family of God, and the Lord
loves those who seek to do good unto his family.

u The human race is very dear to God, its creator,
and all His creatures, from the highest to the lowest,
are meant for the service and benefit of the great
whole which we call the human kind.

" ABD-EL-KADER EL HUSNY.

" The 23 Kebi-el-Anouar, 1300."

* See 1 Chron. xxii. 8.— Note of the Translator.

CHAPTEE XI.

ABYSSINIA.
I.

Origin of the Abyssinian People.

THE Abyssinians have a tradition, the origin of
•which is lost in antiquity and which is said also
to be prevalent among the Jews, viz., that soon after
the deluge, Chus, the grandson of Noah, went through
Lower Egypt, which was then uninhabited, and cross-
ing the Atbara settled with his family in the table-
lands of Abyssinia. The same tradition relates that
Chus and his family, still terrified by the recollection
of the Deluge, chose rather to live in caves upon the
mountain side than to trust themselves to the plains.

This race of men hewed with amazing perseverance
large caverns in the mountains of marble and granite,
many of which are still in existence.

The Abyssinians also say that the children of Chus
built the town of Axoum, shortly before the birth of
Abraham. Soon after this they established colonies
as far as the Atbara, where, as we gather from
Herodotus (Book II., chapter xxix.), they cultivated

ASrSSINIA. 243

tlie sciences. Josephus, in his " Antiquities of Judea,"
calls them Meroetes, or inhabitants of Meroe (Atbara),
an island situated between the Astaboras and the
Nile.

The fragments of the colossal statues of the constel-
lation of Sirius, which are still to be seen at Axoum,
show that this people possessed some astronomical
knowledge. Seir, in the language of the Chussites or
Troglodytes and in that of the land of Meroe, means
" dog," which explains why this province was named
Sire and the large river which skirts it the Siris.

In the plain between the Fazoglou and Sennaar the
river is named Nile, that is to say, Hue. The ancients
knew it by this name and also by that of Egyptus, but
they more generally designated it by that of Siris.
Pliny says that it bore this name above its junction
with the other branch, that of the White Nile : " Sic
quoque etiamnunc Siris, ut ante nominatus per aliquot
millia et in Ilomero Egyptus."

The name of Egyptus, which Homer gives to the
stream, was known in Ethiopia long before his time ;
and Egypt in Ethiopian is called Y Gypt, while an
Egyptian is Gypt. Y Gypt signifies the country of
ditches or canals.

Thebes was built by a colony of Ethiopians who
came from Sire, the city of Seir or of the dog-star, and
of Meroe. Diodorus of Sicily says that the Greeks,
by putting an o before Siris had made the word
unintelligible. Siris then was Osiris, but he was

244 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

neither the sun nor a real person. It was the star
Sirius or the dog-star, designated by the figure of a
dog because of the information which it gave to the
people of Atbara, where were made the first observa-
tions of its emerging from the sun's rays which made
it easy of perception with the naked eye. The com-
parison of the " barking Anubis " was made because
its first appearance was like the barking of a dog
which gave notice of the approaching inundation.
The theory of the constellation of Sirius was specially
studied at Thebes on account of its connection with the
rural year of the Egyptians.

Ptolemy has related an heliacal ascension of Sirius
observed upon the fourth day of the summer solstice
in the year 2250 B.C. ; and there are very good reasons
for believing that, long before this period, the Thebans
were excellent astronomers. This observation cer-
tainly makes Thebes much older than it is supposed to
be according to the chronicles of Axoum.

That city is not mentioned in the Bible by the
name under which it is known to us. Before Moses's
day it was destroyed by Salotes, Prince of the Agaazi
or Ethiopian pastors. In the ancient tongue it was
called Ammon-No. The name of Thebes is said to
be derived from Theba, a word which in Hebrew
signifies the ark (of polished wood, theba) which God
ordered Noah to build.

While the descendants of Chus were extending
their progress in the central and northern parts of

ABYSSINIA. 245

their territory, their brethren were advancing into
the mountains which run parallel with the Gulf of
Arabia. This country was always known as Saba,
or Azab, both of which words signify the south. It
was thus called because it was on the southern coast
of the Gulf of Arabia, and that, on coming from
Arabia or Egypt, it formed the southern frontier of
the African continent.

The inhabitants, who wore long hair and had very
delicate and regular features, with dark brown skin,
and who lived with their flocks in tents upon
the vast plains, made overtures to the Chussites
and acted as messengers to them for the convey-
ance of their merchandise. These men were called
Phut in Hebrew, or in all other languages, Balous,
Bagla, Belave, Berber!, Barabra, Zilla, and Souah,
all of which signify pastor. The country which they
inhabited was called Barbaria by the Greeks and
Romans, after the word Berber, which originally
signified pastor.

It was over the long tongue of land which extends
along the shores of the Indian Ocean and the Eed Sea
that the pastors carried the merchandise to the ports
of these two seas as far as the plains of the Isthmus
of Suez, which probably derives its name from Souah
pastors.

In the Bible one of these plains is spoken of as
Goshen, that is, the land of pasturage, and the Arabs
still call it Beled-el-Gue'che, which means the same.

246 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

The principal residence of the pastors was the low
and level part of Africa situated between the tropic
of Cancer and the mountains of Abyssinia. But the
noblest and most warlike of the pastors were, beyond
all doubt, those who inhabited and still inhabit the
mountains of Habad, which extend from the neigh-
bourhood of Massowah to Suakim. In the ancient
language of the country so means shepherd, souah being
the plural.

The mountains inhabited by the Agaazi are called
Habadj which in their language, as in Arabic, means
serpent. Hence comes the historical tradition told in
the book of Axoum, that a serpent conquered the pro-
vince of Tigre and ruled over it.

According to this book, which is the most ancient
chronicle in the country and the best authority next
to the Bible, five thousand years elapsed between the
creation of the world and the birth of Christ. Abyssinia
was not inhabited until 1800 B.C., and four hundred
years later many eminent men, speaking different lan-
guages, sought refuge there. They were well received
by the Agaazi, and each one of them was allowed to
choose the land which he wished to occupy. This
establishment is called in the Chronicle of Axoum,
Anyoba, that is to say, the entry of the nations. There
is a tradition, too, that this people came from Palestine
at about the time that an inundation caused great
damage there, and we know from Pausanias that there
was a great inundation in Ethiopia during the reign

ABYSSINIA. 247

of Cecrops in Greece in the year 1490 B.C. At this
period the Israelites, leaving Arabia, entered the pro-
mised land under Caleb and Joshua. We cannot
wonder at the terrible impression which this invasion
made upon the minds of the dwellers in Palestine.
Thus, when Joshua had crossed the Jordan and caused
the walls of Jericho to fall, a panic seized all the
peoples of Syria and Palestine. (See Joshua vi. 21.)

These peoples, each of whom spoke a different lan-
guage, hearing that the conqueror, followed by a
numerous army and already master of a portion of the
country, was putting the vanquished to death beneath
harrows of iron, did not wait to face so formidable a
foe, and sought safety in flight, their most natural
refuge being the pastors of Abyssinia and the Atbara.
Procopius mentions two columns which in his day were
still standing upon the coast of Mauritania, opposite
Gibraltar, and upon which was inscribed in Phoenician,
" We are Phoenicians, and we are flying before the
face of the son of Nun " (Joshua).

Thus, among the various inhabitants of Abyssinia,
from the southernmost limits to the frontiers of Egypt,
there were to be found descendants of Chus, who,
after having been troglodytes and lived in caves, and
then pastors, became partially civilised and resided
in cities. After them came the nations which left
Palestine — the Amharas, the Agows of Damot, the
Agows of Tohue, and the Gafats.

248 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

II.

Journey of the Queen of 8heba to visit Solomon at Jeru-
salem, and Conversion of Abyssinia to the Jewish
Faith.

It is not surprising that the constant traffic and the
important business transacted by the men of Tyre and
the Jews with the Chussites and the pastors of the
African coast should have established close relations
between them. "We can understand, therefore, that
the Queen of Sheba, the sovereign of those lands,
should have desired to see for herself what became of
the treasures which had been exported in such large
quantities from her own country, and to make the
acquaintance of the prince for whom they were in-
tended. There can be no doubt as to the journey
having taken place, for all the Eastern nations speak
of it in the same terms as those in which it is de-
scribed in the Bible. The Abyssinian annals say that
the Queen lived at Saba or Azab, the land of myrrh
and incense, situated not far from the Red Sea. They
add that she went to Jerusalem under the auspices of
Hiram, King of Tyre, whose daughter accompanied her,
as we are told in Psalm xlv. ; that she did not go by
sea or pass through Arabia for fear of the Ishmaelites,
but went from Azab into Palestine, and returned by
way of Massowah and Suakim, escorted by her own
subjects, the pastors ; and that she performed the

AJ3FSSINIA. 249

journey upon a white camel or dromedary of very
great size and surpassing beauty.

Many ancient writers imagined this queen to be of
Arabic descent ; but Sheba was a kingdom of itself,
and must not be confounded with a small town in
Arabia also called Saba, to the south of Mecca. "We
know from history that the Sabeans were accustomed
to be governed by a queen rather than a king, while
the Homerites, or Arabian Sabeans, who inhabited the
coast of Arabia opposite Azab, were ruled by kings.
The Homerite kings were not allowed to leave their
country or even their residence, and if they appeared
in public the people had a right to stone them.

"We may be sure that a people which treated its
sovereigns in this way would not have allowed the
queen, if perchance they were ruled by one, to under-
take a long journey. The Arabs assert that the name
of the Queen of Sheba who came to Jerusalem was
Belkis, while the Abyssinians call her Maqueda. In
the New Testament, Matthew speaks of her as the
Queen of the South (chap. xii. v. 42).

The annals of Abyssinia are full of details con-
cerning her journey. They say that the queen, who
was a pagan when she left Azab, was so filled with
admiration of Solomon, that she became converted to
the Jewish faith while at Jerusalem, and had a son
by Solomon, whom she named Menilek. The queen
brought him back with her to Sheba, but a few years
afterwards sent him to his father to be educated.

VOL. II. 8

2 5o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Solomon was careful to give him a very good edu-
cation, and he was anointed king of Ethiopia in the
Temple, taking henceforth the name of Solomon's
father David (Daoud). He then returned to Azab
with a colony of Jews, among them many doctors of
the Mosaic law, including one of each tribe. He
made these doctors judges in his kingdom, and from
them are said to be descended the present judges
(umbares), three of whom always accompany the king.
With Menilek was Azarias, son of the high priest
Sadoc, bearing a copy of the law ; and he, too, was
given the title of Nebrit, or high priest, while,
although the book of the law was burnt in the church
at Axoum, when the Arabs despoiled the province of
Adel, the functions of Azarias were preserved in his
family, his descendants being still nebrits, or priests,
of the church of Axoum.

The whole of Abyssinia was thus converted to the
Jewish faith, and the government of the state as well
as of the church was modelled upon that of Jeru-
salem. The last use which the Queen of Sheba made
of her power was to order that no woman should in
future reign, and that the crown should go to the
nearest heir male. In the later histoiy of Abyssinia
we find that if no woman wore the crown, many
queen-regents have left a great name behind them,
and it may even be said that the most prosperous
and peaceful epochs of Abyssinian history have been
when a queen was regent. The Queen of Sheba died

ABYSSINIA. 251

after a reign of forty years, about 980 B.C., and was
succeeded by her son Menilek, whose descendants
were, as we know from the traveller Bruce, still on tho
throne in 1790.

in.
Conversion of Abyssinia to Christianity.

The Abyssinians accept the Holy Scriptures as we
do, and count the same number of books.

The Eevelation of St. John, called by them " the
Vision of John-Abu-Kalamsis," is their favourite
reading. The old Abyssinian priests read with much
gusto the Song of Solomon, but they prohibit the
reading of it to their deacons, to laymen, and to
women. They believe that Solomon composed it in
honour of the daughter of Pharaoh. Next to the
Eevelation they esteem the Acts of the Apostles,
which they style Synnodos, these Synnodos serving
as the written laws of the country.

Another book is called Haimanut-Abu, and consists
chiefly of the works of Greek fathers treating of and
expounding certain articles of faith which were the
subject of disputation in the ancient Greek Church.
There are also translations of the works of St. Athana-
sius, St. Basilius, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Cyril
also extant in Abyssinia. Another book much revered
is the Synaxar, or " Flower of the Saints."

According to Abyssinian history, Bazen, who was
the twenty-second king descended from the Queen of

252 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Sheba, was contemporary with Augustus and reigned
sixteen years, the birth of Christ taking place in the
eighth year of his reign. The conversion of Abyssinia
to Christianity took place under King Abreha, or
Atzeba, the thirteenth successor of Bazen, about 333
years after Christ, and the first Eishop of Abyssinia
was delegated by St. Athanasius of Alexandria, who
himself occupied the episcopal see of that city,
A.D. 330.

It is also related that Frumentius, the apostle of
Abyssinia, came to the kingdom during the govern-
ment of a woman, who was probably the mother of a
king under age. The Greek philosopher Meropius,
who was living at Tyre and had embraced the Christian
religion, embarked upon the Eed Sea to go to India,
taking with him Frumentius and Adesius, two young
men whom he was anxious to establish in trade, after
having given them the best of educations. The ship
upon which they had embarked was wrecked off the
coast of Abyssinia, and while Meropius perished in
defending himself from the inhabitants, the two youths
were captured and taken to Axoum, where the court
then resided. They soon became acquainted with the
language, and as the Abyssinians were always very
kindly disposed towards strangers, they were very well
treated, Adesius being appointed master of the king's
household, a post which has since then always been
held by a foreigner. Frumentius was deemed worthy
to be entrusted with the education of the king, and

ABFSSINIA. 253

the queen appointed him her son's tutor. Frumentius
inculcated in him great veneration and love for the
Christian religion, and he then proceeded to Alex-
andria to inform Bishop Athanasius of his hope of
converting Abyssinia to Christianity, and to ask him
to send there a number of men capable of spreading
instruction among the people.

Athanasius consecrated him Bishop of Axoum, and
on his return the king publicly embraced Christianity.
The greater part of Abyssinia followed his example,
and the Church of Ethiopia has endured down to our
own day.

It appears that the conversion took place peaceably
and without any effusion of blood. This was the
second time that the empire changed its faith in the
same orderly fashion, no fanatical preachers or over-
zealous saints causing any disturbance. If war has
at various periods desolated Abyssinia, it has been for
purely temporal reasons.

Towards the year 1200, while Lalibala reigned in
Abyssinia, the Christians were violently persecuted
in Egypt. Amru, the lieutenant of the Caliph Omar,
had then completed the conquest of that kingdom, and
the masons and stone-cutters suffered more than any
of the others, as the Arabs had a special detestation
of those trades. Lalibala offered many of them
a refuge, and employed them in hewing out of the
solid rock in the province of Lasta, his native place, a
number of churches which are still intact.

254 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

During the reign of Saif-Araad (of the line of
Solomon), from 1342 to 1370, the Soudan of Egypt
had imprisoned Mark, the Patriarch of the Copts,
and as soon as Saif-Araad heard of it, he ordered all
the Egyptian merchants to be arrested, and sent
bodies of cavalry beyond the frontier to stop the
caravans. The Soudan soon released the Patriarch,
the only condition he stipulated being that he should
make peace between him and the Abyssinian king,
which he soon did.

Zara Jacob, fourth son of David II., succeeded his
nephew and occupied the throne for thirty-four years
(1434 — 68) under the name of Constantine, and he
was regarded in Abyssinia as a second Solomon. The
Abyssinians had a long time before this founded at
Jerusalem a monastery, to which Zara Jacob made
several donations, and he obtained permission from
the Pope to found a second one at Eome. Nicodemus,
then superior of the monastery at Jerusalem, sent
priests in his name to the Council at Florence, and
these priests concurred in the views of the Eastern
Church as to the procession of the Holy Ghost, which
was the cause of the schism between the Greeks and
the Latins. The Abyssinian embassy was deemed of
sufficient importance for the recollection of its visit to
have been preserved in a picture which is still in the
Vatican.

ABYSSINIA. 255

IV.

Struggle of Abyssinia against the invasion of the Mussul-
man tribes of Arabia and the coast of Africa. Its
alliances with Portugal. Before and after the dis-
covery of the Cape of Good Hope.

Prince Henry, son of John L, King of Portugal,
jealous of the greatness of Venice, which owed its
prosperity to the trade with India, discovered another
means of communicating with the East, and that was
by sailing round the famous cape then known as the
Promontory of Tempests.

He had to combat the prejudices of the whole
nation, but he had learned from history that the
voyage had already been accomplished by the Phoe-
nicians, during the reign of Necos in Egypt, and
afterwards by Eudoxius under Ptolemseus Lathyrus.
Eudoxius passed round the southernmost point of
Africa and arrived at Cadiz.

But there are always plenty of people who, inca-
pable of achieving any great thing themselves, are
ready to criticise the enterprise of others, and these
people declared that the sea was continually raging
and boiling around these arid shores, and that the air
was so heated by the sun that all men who went
through it would come out quite black. These argu-
ments, industriously circulated by the Venetians,
would have sufficed to prevent Prince Henry's project
being carried out if King Edward, instead of being

256 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

influenced by them, had not favoured his uncle's
plans, and several voyages were made under his
auspices.

Christians returning from Palestine reported that
they had seen in Jerusalem a monastery, the monks in
which were subjects of a Christian prince in the
heart of Africa, whose empire extended from the
shores of the Eed Sea and the Indian Ocean to the
shores of the Atlantic. It was further said that
several of these monks came to Alexandria, the
patriarch of which alone enjoyed the privilege of
sending a bishop into their country. This Christian
prince was known in Europe as Prester John. While
sending vessels to circumnavigate Africa, the King of
Portugal despatched two ambassadors to Prester John
by way of Egypt. Covillan and Paiva were entrusted
with this mission, and they took with them a map
drawn by Prince Henry, being instructed to correct
it by the light of the observations which they made.

The Portuguese travellers went together to Alex-
andria, Cairo, Suez, and Aden, where they separated.
Covillan proceeded to Calicut and Goa, and from that
point, crossing the Indian Ocean, visited the mines of
Sofala. On his return to Aden and Cairo, where he
was to have been rejoined by Paiva, he learned that
the latter had died.

At Cairo he received the visit of two Jews, Abra-
ham and Joseph, bringing two letters from the King
of Abyssinia, into whose states he then made his

ABYSSINIA. 257

entrance. King Alexander received him with great
kindness and kept him at his court. The ambassador
married an Abyssinian woman, and was in high
favour with several of the princes who succeeded one
another upon the throne. lie kept up a correspon-
dence with the King of Portugal, describing to him
the different parts of India which he had seen, the
wealth of the Sofala mines, to the north of the Cape
of Good Hope, and exhorted him, on his own behalf
as well as that of the King of Abyssinia, to persevere
in his researches as to the feasibility of a passage
round the Cape. He assured him that the possibility
of it was well known in India and Abyssinia, and
sent him a map upon which the Cape and the country
round were correctly drawn.

Thereupon, the King of Portugal fitted out three
vessels which he placed under the command of Bar-
tholomew Diaz, who reached the formidable cape, but
his sailors, terrified by the force of the wind and the
rough seas, refused to go any farther. The sailors,
whose complexions were burnt brown by the sun and
the long sea voyage, were afraid of becoming literally
Negroes. All the stories which had been told them
before their departure appeared to them as realities,
and Diaz was obliged to content himself with seeing
the Cape of Good Hope, instead of sailing round it,
returning to Portugal, where, for the remainder of the
king's life, the dangers of the expedition were being
constantly dwelt upon.

258 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

In order to divert the king from carrying out his
spirited enterprise, many influential persons, including
the envoys of foreign sovereigns, based their oppo-
sition upon motives of state policy. They urged, as
it has since been urged in regard to the Suez Canal,
that the enterprise was an impossible one, and that as,
in the event of its succeeding, the balance of trade
would be altered, the nations which had the exclusive
possession of the trade with India would combine in
a war of extermination against Portiigal.

Prince Henry was no longer alive to answer these
contradictory objections and perfidious suggestions,
and since then the spirit of enterprise and maritime
discovery had declined in Portugal.

But some years later King Emanuel determined to
follow up the noble project of his predecessors. He
selected as his lieutenant Yasco de Gama, a man of
great distinction both as regarded his courage and
general disposition, and he intrusted him with the
journal and maps of Pedro Covillan, as well as the
letters of the African and Indian princes of whom he
had heard.

Upon July 14, 1497, Gama started from Lisbon
with a small fleet, and upon the 18th of November he
discovered the Cape of Storms. But the ships were so
tempest-tossed that the sailors refused to go any far-
ther. The impressions made by the voyage of Diaz
were stronger than the obedience and resignation
which they had solemnly sworn in the Chapel of the

ABYSSINIA. 259

Virgin, to which Yasco de Gama had conducted them
in procession before he left Lisbon. They revolted,
the pilots placing themselves at the head of the
mutineers. But Yasco, seconded by his officers, seized
the leaders of the revolt, and loading them with irons,
placed them in the hold. He himself went to the
helm, and, steering off the land, went out to sea, to
the great astonishment of his brave companions. The
tempest lasted two days more, and on the 20th of
November he had the honour of being able to say that
he had doubled the Cape. In the moment of victory
the trumpets were sounded, and Yasco liberated the
prisoners, amid great rejoicing, and impressed upon
them that the proper name for the promontory was
the Cape of Good Hope.

The admiral landed with Martin Alonzo, who spoke
several of the Negro dialects, upon the Tierra de Natal,
where he was very well received by the king and the
natives.

Upon the 15th of January, 1498, after having taken
in a fresh supply of water, which the Negroes them-
selves helped him to get on board, Gama proceeded as
far as a cape which he named the Cape of Currents,
where the coast of Natal commences, that of Sofala
being farther north. He reached the very spot
where Covillan, coming from the north, had pre-
viously arrived, so that these two Portuguese went
right round Africa.

David III., the ancestor of Alexander, ascended

26o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the throne in 1508, when twelve years of age, the
Queen-Regent, Helena, and Bishop Mark, her favourite,
assuming the reins of government in Abyssinia, which
began to suffer from the attacks of the Mussulman
kings upon the eastern coast of Africa and on the
Arabian side.

Helena, the daughter of a Moorish prince, did all
she could to keep the peace between the Abyssinian
Christians and their Mahometan neighbours by creat-
ing business relations between them, and she had
succeeded to a great extent, when a third Power came
in to disturb the equilibrium. The Turks, who had
never appeared in the south of Africa or Asia, came
upon the scene, under Selim, the Emperor of Constan-
tinople, who had just conquered the Soudan of Egypt,
soon establishing themselves in the Arabian peninsula
up to the shores of the Indian Ocean.

The leading towns on the coast of Arabia — Jeddah,
Moka, Suakim, and Massowah, upon the African coast,
at the gates of Abyssinia — were garrisoned with
Turkish janissaries, who preyed upon commerce instead
of protecting it, so the Arab traders took to flight,
going with their riches to the coasts of the kingdom
of Adel, upon the south-eastern limits of Abyssinia.
The trade of India, in order to avoid a like hindrance,
wTas also concentrated upon Adel.

The Turks then seized Zeyla, a small island situated
upon the coast of Adel, at the entrance to the Indian
Ocean, where they established a custom-house and sub-

ABYSSINIA. 261

jectecl the trade of the kingdom of Adel with India to
heavy dues. This new establishment threatened both
the kingdom of Adel and the empire of Abyssinia, and
the Queen-Eegent Helena, hearing of the Portuguese
passage round the Cape, saw that nothing but their
assistance could save Adel and Abyssinia from ruin.
Pedro Covillan, the Portuguese, was still at her court,
and she arranged with him to form an alliance with
the King of Portugal. There was also at her court
an Armenian merchant named Matteo, who had a great
reputation for probity, and who had been in the habit
of travelling through the Eastern States to fulfil mis-
sions for the kings and the great. Helena selected
him as her ambassador to the King of Portugal, and
it appears certain that the despatches which he carried
were drawn up by Pedro Covillan, their contents
being that the Queen's demands would be explained in
person by Matteo, who enjoyed her full confidence.

Ambassadors travelled more slowly in the sixteenth
century than they do now, and Matteo first went to
the Portuguese Indies, it being only three years after-
wards, in 1513, that he continued his voyage to Por-
tugal, whither he proceeded with a fleet loaded with
spices sent home by Albuquerque, the Portuguese
Governor-General.

During this time Helena had concluded a treaty of
peace with the King of Adel, but as the relief expected
from Portugal did not arrive, that prince, incapable of
resisting the Turks, allied himself with them against

zbz RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Abyssinia. Their combined forces invaded the empire,
and in less than a year they had reduced to captivity
or had slaughtered twenty thousand Christians. The
whole country was terrorised, but David III., though
only sixteen, placed himself at the head of an army,
while the Queen-Eegent and the ladies of the nobility
freely contributed their jewels and were lavish in
presents to the soldiers, in order to stimulate their
courage. The King soon reached the province of
Fategar and marched direct upon Aoussa, the capital
of the kingdom of Adel. There he drew up his army
in battle array, and after a single combat between a
young Abyssinian monk, Gabriel Andreas, and Maifudi,
one of the Adel leaders, in which the latter was killed,
a great battle was fought, in which the Abyssinians
were victorious, ten or twelve thousand Moors being
left on the battle-field. The next day King David
went to a city where the King of Adel had a palace,
and finding the gate shut he struck it with his lance.
No answer being given, he left his lance sticking in
the door, to show that he had come hither and had
been free to enter the gates. When the army returned
to Abyssinia the young monk who had been the hero
of the single combat was loaded with honours, his vic-
tory being commemorated in songs. This victory was
gained on July, 1516, and upon the same clay a Portu-
guese fleet, under the command of Don Lopez Suarez
Alberguiera, had seized the island of Zey]a and burnt
the custom-house. The ambassador Matteo, who had

ABYSSINIA. 263

been right royally treated by King Emanuel and sent
back to the Indies, embarked at Goa with Admiral de
Segueyra and sailed for Massowah, where he arrived
on April 16th, 1520. He then set out for the interior
of Abyssinia ; but the fatigues of the voyage had been
too much for him, and he died of fever before he could
regain King David. Zaga Zaab, an Abyssinian monk,
was selected as his successor, and he started for Por-
tugal in 1525, the year of the death of Queen Helena.

David then made preparations for renewing the war
with the kingdom of Adel, which had allied itself with
the Turkish pashas and generals commanding in Arabia,
the Turks sending a contingent which began by re-
capturing the island of Zeyla.

It was customary for a caravan to go every year
from Abyssinia to Jerusalem, this caravan — which con-
sisted of about a thousand pilgrims, priests as well as
laymen — starting from Hamozem, a small territory only
two days' march from Dobarwa and Massowah. The
caravan was preceded by trumpeters, and crossed the
Desert by way of Suakim without meeting with any
rebuif. But in the year following the conquest of Egypt
by the Sultan Selim, when the reign of the Mameluke
dynasty ended the Abbot Azerata- Christ os was conduct-
ing fifteen hundred pilgrims to Jerusalem, and on their
return, having been met by a body of Selim' s troops,
most of them were massacred and the rest driven into
the Desert, where they perished of hunger and thirst.
In 1525 another caravan assembled at Hamozem. It

26+ RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

was composed of three hundred and thirty-six monks
or priests and fifteen nuns. The second day after it had
started it was attacked by the Moors of the Hamozem
district, and all the Christians of a certain age were put
to the sword, the younger ones being sold to the Turks.
Only fifteen persons escaped, of whom three alone suc-
ceeded in rejoining the king at Shoa. From this time
the Abyssinians cut off all communication with Egypt
by way of the Desert, and David entered with his
army the province of Dawaro, sending on a detach-
ment of troops which defeated the Adel advance guard,
while the king advanced and fought a great battle at
Chimbra-Core, in which he was totally defeated, losing
a great part of his nobility and four thousand soldiers.

Mehemet, surnamed Gragne (the left-handed), Go-
vernor of Zeyla, was in command of the allied army,
and he spent the next two years following this victory
in strengthening his forces, at the expiration of which
time he invaded the frontier provinces of Fategar,
Efat, and the Dawaro, putting most of the inhabitants
to the sword and reducing the remainder to slavery.

Seeing his empire threatened with ruin, King
David resolved, despite his inferior forces, to fight
another battle, but he was once more defeated, losing
his principal commander and leading officers. He
returned to Amhara and encamped at Hegis, hoping
to recruit a fresh army, but the Turkish commander
did not give him time to do this, and in the month of
April following entered Amhara and then burnt and

AJ3FSSINIA. 265

pillaged Yarvar. In 1530 he invaded the province of
Tigre and the King fled to Wogora, while in the year
1531 the Abyssinian king, still pursued by Mehemet,
sustained a third defeat at Dalakas, on the banks of
the Nile.

Negadd-Yasus and many other heads of the nobility
perished beneath his eyes, and the brave monk,
Andreas, now well advanced in years, sought a
glorious death, being resolved not to survive the
disasters of his country.

Other disasters followed, but King David continued
an heroic resistance until his death in 1540, the final
blow to him being the capture by the Turkish Vizier
Mudjid of the whole of his family, who were put to
the sword.

The only one who escaped was his son Claudius, and
when he came to the throne the fall of the Abyssinian
empire seemed inevitable, especially as famine and
pestilence, which generally followed upon a prolonged
war in the East, were desolating the country. Clau-
dius, who had been very carefully brought up by his
mother, Sabel-Venghel, celebrated for her wisdom and
courage, had not, of course, much experience, and the
Moors thought that they would soon have Abyssinia
at their mercy ; but the young sovereign had the good
fortune to beat them in several engagements, and
finally overthrew the army of Ammer, the principal
lieutenant of Mehemet.

While this favourable change was taking place in

VOL. II. T

266 RECOLLECTIONS OF FOPTF YEARS.

Abyssinia, the Patriarch Juan Bermudez, who had
been sent several years previously to negotiate an
alliance with Portugal, returned from Lisbon, and he
drew so graphic a picture of the disasters of Abyssinia
that the king sent orders to the Viceroy of the Indies
to send four hundred soldiers to Massowah. Don
Stephano de Gama, brother of Yasco, who was Yiceroy
of the Indies, determined to land Juan Bermudez with
the promised troops on the coast of Abyssinia, and his
fleet passed through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to
Massowah. These troops, commanded by Martin
Correa, seized the town of Ashiko and put all the
inhabitants to the sword, Martin Correa cutting off
the head of the Moorish commander and sending it as
a present to Queen Sabel-Venghel, who was at that
time residing in a fortress of the kingdom of Tigre.

Don Stephano de Gama, returning to India, left his
younger brother, Christopher, behind him with some
of the best of the Portuguese troops, and the latter,
after combating the Turks with varying success, was
eventually made prisoner by the treachery of a
Mahometan woman with whom he had fallen in
love, and delivered up to Mehemet the Left-handed,
who had his head cut off and sent it to Constanti-
nople, his body being divided among the tribes of
Arabia.

Mehemet also seized the Portuguese camp and
allowed his men to despatch all the wounded, but
when the Turks pursued the women to the lines of

ABYSSINIA. 267

Don Christopher, where they had sought refuge, one
of them, to avoid the outrages to which they were
about to be subjected, set a light to a powder barrel
and blew up the whole camp. The Queen and the
Patriarch succeeded in making their escape, and
rejoined King Claudius, who was very grieved when
he heard of Christopher's death. He soon avenged it,
however, defeating Mehemet the Left-handed in a
battle at Bet-d'-Isaac, on February 10, 1543. Me-
hemet himself was killed by a bullet fired by Pedro
Leon, a Portuguese, who cut off his ear and put it in
his pocket, returning to the ranks to continue the
fight. The Moors, deprived of their general, took to
flight, and were pursued until nightfall by the Abys-
sinians and Portuguese, who slaughtered them in
great numbers.

Thus Claudius took a splendid revenge upon the
Mussulmans who had reduced his father to such cruel
extremities, and it only remained for him to punish
Joram, who had driven his father from Mount Salim
and compelled him to cross the Tacazze on foot at the
risk of being drowned. Joram was not at the battle of
Bet-d'-Isaac, but he hastened to march in that direc-
tion, and the king, informed of his intention, put
some of his troops into an ambuscade and cut Joram' s
army to pieces.

"While Mehemet had been ravaging Abyssinia, the
provinces of Sire* and Tigre, situated between the
Demba and the cities which the Moors occupied on

T2

268 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the Eed Sea, had been the theatre of the war. The
Turks had completely ruined them, and Mehemet had
burnt the city of Axoum and destroyed all the
churches and convents of Tigre, Claudius being
occupied during the end of his reign in repairing
these disasters.

But Del-Tumborea, the widow of Mehemet, did her
best to keep up the war, for she told Nur, the
Governor of Zeyla, who was madly in love with her,
that she would only give her hand to the man who
brought her the head of Claudius, the conqueror of
Mehemet.

Nur eagerly accepted the challenge, and sent a
message to Claudius, bidding him defiance. Claudius
quickly reassembled his army and marched upon
Adel, contrary to the advice of the queen-mother and
his friends, who advised him to wait the coming of
the Moors. The battle was a very bloody one, but
the Abyssinians were worsted, and Claudius suc-
cumbed after receiving twenty wounds. His head
was cut off and brought by Nur to Del-Tumborea,
who had it suspended by the hair from a tree facing
her house, in order that her eyes might ever be able
to feed upon a spectacle so grateful to them.

Claudius had reigned nineteen years, and the battle
in which he perished was fought on March 22nd,
1559. The principal officers of his army perished
with him, and a great part of the army was made
captive, the remainder being dispersed and the camp

ABYSSINIA. 269

pillaged. Nur, content with the recompense of his
undertaking, did not care to renew the struggle, and
he returned to Adel attired as a private soldier, for-
bidding any of the demonstrations which usually
greet a victorious soldier, and declaring that the glory
of the triumph was due to God alone.

Since that time the Moors have scarcely ever inter-
fered with the Abyssinian empire, and the reigns of
the kings of the Solomon dynasty who succeeded
Claudius, from 1559 to 1770, were marked by a series
of rebellions, of internal struggles, and of wars, many
of them unsuccessful, with the Gallas tribes bordering
on Abyssinia.

v.

Modern and Contemporary Period.

At the end of the eighteenth century the governors
of the principal provinces refused obedience to the
monarch descended from Solomon. The princes of
that family had lost their authority, and, up to the
present time, Abyssinia has been governed by the ras
or kings of the two large divisions which form the
empire of Abyssinia : Tigre and the Ambara.

Tigre, with its dependencies, comprises all the region
between the Ked Sea and the Tacazze. The Ambara,
with its dependent provinces, is formed by the terri-
tories between the Tacazze and the Nile. In 1855 an
Abyssinian chief, who was merely governor of a

27o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

province, who did not belong to the Solomon race,
revolted against his father-in-law, Eas Ali, who had
been reigning for a long time at Gondar. He over-
threw him, and after having vanquished first Cubic",
King of Tigre, and then the King of Shoa, proclaimed
himself Emperor under the title of Theodoros. But,
as we have seen was the case in previous ages,
Abyssinia, a mountainous country favourable for
defence as well as for attack, has been the scene of
many sudden changes in the fortune of war. In 1858
and 1859, Theodoros was in his turn defeated by
Negoucie-Mkar, a nephew of Oubie, who regained
possession of forty- four provinces forming part of the
kingdom of his uncle, while his brother Dedjam-
madje-Tassamma, took possession of Gondar, the
second city of the ancient empire. A relative of
Eas- Ali, named Amadin-Bechir, several times defeated
the army of Theodoros, and remained in possession of
the provinces of "Wollo, Warro-Cassou, and Warro-
Imanat; the King of Shoa recovered his independence
by forming an alliance with Amadin-Bechir and
another chief, named Tedela-Gualu, who governs the
provinces of Godjam, Damot and Agos-Meder, up to
the sources of the Blue Nile, while the Gallas tribes
are constituted into a kingdom and are hostile to
Theodoros.

Thus, having regard to the number and importance
of the provinces which he has reconquered, King
Nikas seems to be the most powerful prince in Abys-

ABYSSINIA. 271

sinia, and I trust that this unfortunate country, which
has been subjected to all the horrors of civil war, may
recover the unity which in former ages saved it from
foreign conquest, and that King Nikas may, by his
intelligence and tendency to open communication with
Europe, be equal to this difficult but glorious task.

He sent me, I may add, the following autograph
letter, upon his own behalf and that of his people,
expressing his wishes for the success of the Suez
Canal ; and this letter, written in Ethiopian, has been
translated by M. d'Abbadie, well known for his
travels in Abyssinia.

" I Negus,

"Master (of the horse) Mkas, King of Ethiopia,
who reigns by the law of our Lord Jesus Christ, from
Mizwa to Gondar, and this is the kingdom of Tigre,
and Simen, Wagara, "Walqayt, Tagade, Dambya,
Ealasa, Kinfaz, Agaw Lasta, Salawa; I salute Fer-
dinand de Lesseps, who is of the tribe of light, who
has accomplished a work wonderful for our day.

"From the beginning until now I have had my
mind fixed upon the work which you are accomplish-
ing, and which is a source of joy for all the earth ;
and now that it is a settled thing, upon behalf of my
country, which I love, and in my own name, I give
you thanks.

"In piercing the land of Sawis (Suez), you make a
mutual union between our lands and the affairs of

272 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

Europe. Thus your name will not perish from among
us, and our land will be a granary for the regions of
the West. And this being so, know that my country
and I love you. I am anxious to aid you in your
enterprise with cattle or in any other way. I pray
the Lord to keep you."

I complete this plain narrative of the leading facts
in the history of Abyssinia, by expressing the hope
that France will come to an understanding with
England to restore to a population of thirty million
Christians, now driven into the mountains, their
ancient maritime territory.

France has respect for all "forms of religion, but
she is opposed to religious fanaticism, and it seems
to me that in what looks like the impending dis-
turbance of the Mahometan world, she has a noble
mission to fulfil, that of maintaining aloft the standard
of civilization in the vast regions of Algeria, Senegal
the Gaboon, the Congo, Christian Ethiopia, and the
Eoudaire Sea.

CHAPTEK XII.

THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS

rE inhabitants of Marseilles and the Catalonians
were the first commercial people in Europe who,
after creating consuls, at first merely the syndics of
the principal trading corporations, and afterwards
judges in matters of local trade, felt the importance
of extending the influence of this institution abroad.
The " consuls beyond the seas " were thenceforward
entrusted with the duty of keeping a watch upon the
privileges of their nation, and of settling all disputes
between fellow-countrymen in regard to matters of
trade. Their duties were considered very important,
and were entrusted to men who apparently belonged
to the leading families in the county.

It was during the Crusades that French princes
entrusted to the maritime towns and nations which
assisted them, principally to the inhabitants of Mar-
seilles and the Catalonians, the privilege of forming in
the conquered ports corporations of traders, under the
control of the consuls of their nation. The first
privileges obtained in Syria by the inhabitants of
Marseilles date from 1117—1136.

274 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

The Marquis of Montferrat, Seigneur of Tyre, gave
permission in 1187 to the Marseilles traders in that
city to appoint a consul to dispense justice.* Three
years after this, Guy de Lusignan allowed this city
of Marseilles, by letters patent, to appoint at Acre
consuls or viscounts, who were sworn in by the
King of Jerusalem, and who had jurisdiction in all
civil and criminal cases, murder and high treason
except ed.

Although at this period, Marseilles had no foreign
consuls in the city, her own magistrates took special
care of the interests of foreign traders. In her muni-
cipal statutes (statuta civitatis Massilice) drawn up in
1228, 1233, and 1255, Marseilles laid down as a
principle that, even when at war with a city or a
State, it was the duty of the adversary to respect the
private property of the inhabitants of that city or
State — a principle which does honour to the city
which proclaimed it. Avignon, following the example
of Marseilles, had also declared the property of
strangers to be inviolable, in time of war as well as
of peace.

In 1148, the town of Narbonne possessed at Tor-
tosa, in Spain, a commercial establishment, and the
privilege of having a consul there ; while similar
privileges had been obtained by Narbonne at Genoa
in 1166 and at Pisa in 1171.

* See Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et VEurope, by
Depping.

THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS. 275

A traveller in the fourteenth century found at
Alexandria a French consul whose mission it was to
protect the foreigners who had no consul of their own
nationality.* This honourable privilege of protecting
the foreigners who had no consul of their own has
been confirmed by the treaties styled capitulations,
concluded between France and the Ottoman Porte,
as far back as the reign of Francois I., treaties by
which the protection of the Catholics is accorded to
France.

Jacques Cur took advantage of his position at the
court of Charles VII. to give a sort of official charac-
ter to the relations which he had for some time estab-
lished in Egypt. The Sultan, flattered by his presents,
wrote in 1447 a letter the king, in which he pro-
mised his protection to French traders, and authorised
the appointment of a consul, whom he agreed to treat
upon the footing of the most favoured nation. f

Barcelona, the neighbour and rival of Marseilles,
soon entered into competition with her for European
trade. Gradually delivered from the yoke of the
Sarrazins, from the end of the ninth century, by the
assistance of France, she commenced, under Eaimond
Beranger, towards the close of the eleventh century
an era of great prosperity. Her maritime trade had
then acquired sufficient importance to elicit the en-

* Extract from Fuscobuldi, quoted by Pardessus in his Intro-
duction aux Lois Maritimes.

t Memoires de Mathieu de Coussi, quoted by Pardessus.

276 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

couragement of the Sovereign, who had the wisdom to
guarantee protection and assistance to all foreign
ships, even to those of the Sarrazins. The thirteenth
century is the epoch in which the Catalonian trade
made its greatest advance. The relations between the
Catalonians and France were very important; they
attended the fairs in Champagne, and, as we learn
from Pardessus's " Collection des Lois Maritimes,"
they maintained a consul there. Thus the capital of
Catalonia, which has provided maritime and commercial
legislation with the celebrated " Consulate of the
Sea," showed as keen an appreciation as Marseilles of
the usefulness of foreign consulates.

James I., King of Aragon, granted in 1266 to the
municipal magistrates of Barcelona the privilege of
annually electing and sending out to Egypt and Syria
consuls of their own ; and towards the close of the
fourteenth century the Catalonians drew up some
regulations for the consulate at Alexandria, accord-
ing to which the consul was appointed for three
years and was re- eligible. He was forbidden to keep
a tavern or sell wine by retail, to let the shops on the
ground-floor to any but Catalonians, or to admit into
his house Jews, or women of ill-fame. He was to be
present all day at the custom house, if required, to
take part in the examination of goods, and whenever
he left his house he was to be preceded by two men
in livery.* As early as the thirteenth century, the

* See Capmany's Memoires Historiques, vol. xi.

THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS. 277

Catalonians had consuls at Constantinople, Bey rout,
Damascus, Cyprus, Ehodes, &c., and they had one
upon the confines of Asia, at Tanais, who in 1397
appeared before Tamerlane and offered him presents
upon his return from the triumphant expedition
into Muscovy and Kipsac.*

In Europe, the Catalonians had consuls among all
the peoples living upon the Mediterranean : at Mar-
seilles, Genoa, Pisa, Naples, Venice, and Sardinia,
and especially Sicily. They also had a consulate at
Seville, and the historian Capmany mentions fifty-five
consulates of which Barcelona could boast in the days
of her splendour, but of which not more than five or
six remained in the sixteenth century.

In the Act of Privilege which King Ferdinand
granted in 1251 to the Genoese at Seville, it was
especially stipulated that the Genoese should have in
that city consuls of their own nationality, with the
right of deciding without appeal all disputes between
persons of their own nationality. If the dispute was
between a burgher of Seville and a domiciled
Genoese, it was also to be settled by the consuls,
but an appeal was to lie to the alcaldes. The
consuls were to have nothing to do with criminal
affairs.f

The habit of appointing consuls in a foreign

* See Count de Laborde's Itineraire d'Espagne, vol. v.
f See Navarrete's Colecdon de los viages y descubrimientos que
hicieron por mar los Espanoles, vol. xi.

278 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

country did not become general until the sixteenth
century, and especially from the reign of Louis XIV.,
and in the course of a short time all the trading
nations sent consuls to one another and conferred
upon them prerogatives more or less extensive.

Colbert was the true organiser of the consulates,
and his memoir of March 15, 1669, "upon the steps
to be taken by consuls of the French nation abroad
to keep his Majesty informed of all that occurs," was
the first outcome of the measures which this en-
lightened Minister had adopted for improving the
consular institution. Soon afterwards, the funda-
mental ordinance of 1681, which was also his handi-
work, placed the consulates in a position to render
genuine service to French commerce, and formed for
more than a century the legislation by which French
consular establishments were governed : up to the
reforms which were commenced in 1803 and have
been gone on with ever since.

The Spanish Government has not yet carried out
its project of publishing a set of rules in which the
ancient ordinances relating to consulates will be
fused, in order to provide a general body of instruc-
tions for all its agents.

The general purpose of a consul is to act as com-
mercial agent for his Government in a foreign port or
place of trade, to keep an eye upon the commercial
interests of his country, to endeavour to develop them,
and above all to uphold before the local authorities

THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS. 279

the rights of his fellow-countrymen and to arrange
their disputes.

There are two kinds of consuls, one being dele-
gated by his Government to exercise a special juris-
diction over his compatriots and their business affairs,
without having any other character than that of
magistrate and public functionary, while the other is
a trader who is allowed to add to his particular pro-
fession the duties of consul.

There are several reasons for preferring that a
consul should have no interest of his own in commerce.
His time and his labour should be not his own, but
should belong to his country and Government, to
which, like the traveller Anacharsis, he should com-
municate all that it may be desirable to know con-
cerning the laws, the customs, the habits, the arts,
the trade, and the manufactures of the country in
which he lives.*

According to the general instructions for French
consuls in foreign countries signed by Louis XVIII.
in 1814, " the consuls are political agents, but only
in this sense, that they are recognised by the Sovereign
who receives them as officers of the Government
which sends them, and that the principle of their
mandate is either specific treaties, or the common cus-
tom of nations or general public law."

Then, again, the preamble of the ordinance of
December 15, 1815, says: " Consulates being insti-

* See the Comte de Gardens's, Traite de Diplomatic, vol. i.

280 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

tuted to protect the trade and navigation of our sub-
jects in foreign jurisdiction, to exercise justice and
control over our said subjects, and to supply the
Government with information which may enable it to
insure the prosperity of foreign trade, we have recog-
nised the fact that this object cannot be attained if
the persons selected for the duties of consul have not
acquired by special studies adapted for the character
of their work, as well as by a certain amount of
experience, a thorough knowledge of public law, of
legislation, and of commercial affairs."

This rule, though at times disregarded, was con-
firmed by the royal decree of August 20, 1833,
relating to the personal composition of the consu-
lates, the fifth clause of this decree providing that
u Consuls-General are to be selected from among
the first-class consuls, the latter from among the
second-class, and the latter from among the students
for consulships," the only exception being in
favour of the clerks employed in the commercial
branch of the Foreign Office after so many years'
service.

That learned jurisconsult, M. Pardessus, in his
" Cours de Droit Commercial " (Part VII. chap, vi.),
has devoted several chapters to the political character
of consuls, their jurisdiction, the various administra-
tive or mixed functions which are conferred upon
them, and to the punitive rights which in certain
cases they have as against individuals of their own

THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS. 281

nationality. There is nothing, however, to prevent
a Government conferring upon its agents such an
amount of latitude as may be deemed compatible with
its interests, and they should be considered as public
officials if they devote their attention solely to public
affairs, and if the Sovereign who appoints them, and
whose subjects they are, confers this rank upon
them.

It is only in the Levant and in Barbary that the
consuls have a right of absolute jurisdiction over
their compatriots. In other countries they must con-
fine themselves to jurisdiction in trade disputes,
which is usually conferred upon them by treaty and
usage ; and if they decide as to the personal differ-
ences between their compatriots, it can only be when
called in to arbitrate.

Of all the conventions concluded between the Euro-
pean Powers, none better defines the rights, the im-
munities, the privileges, and the duties of consuls than
that concluded between France and Spain on March
13, 1769. This convention and the previous treaties
between France and Spain, as set forth in ministerial
decrees and royal ordinances, empowers consuls " To
collect and administer the property of their compa-
triots who have died db intestat. To exercise the full
authority conferred by the navigation laws over the
vessels of their own nation. To regulate the salvage
of shipwrecked vessels. To claim the surrender of
deserters from ships. To assist at the examination of

VOL. II. U

z8z RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

trading vessels where their intervention, or that of
one of their agents, is deemed indispensable. To be
present when the houses of any of their compatriots
are searched for contraband goods (their presence must
be first requested by the local authorities before they
proceed to the search). To act as interpreters for
their fellow-countrymen, and to settle their differ-
ences by arbitration and not otherwise, and juris-
diction is specifically denied them by the treaties
and by the tenor of their letters of exequatur. To
appoint vice-consuls for the different ports in their
districts."

The convention of 1769 also accords to the respec-
tive consuls, when they are subjects of the prince who
appoints them and when they are not in trade :
" 1st. Personal immunity from being arrested or cast
into prison, except for some atrocious crime. 2nd.
exemption from all personal charges or service, and
from having soldiers billeted on them. 3rd. The in-
violability of their papers and those of their chan-
celleries, which are not to be touched under any pre-
text whatever, unless the consul is a merchant. 4th.
The privilege of not being liable to be called as wit-
nesses in court, the tribunal 'of war, or, failing it, the
ordinary tribunal, in the event of requiring any judi-
cial declaration from the consul, being expected to
send him a polite message to say that they are under
the necessity of coming to his domicile for that pur-
pose, etc. 5th. The right of placing' upon the door

THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS. 283

of their house a tablet representing a ship, with the
inscription, ' Consul of France or Spain.' '

In a speech delivered on the 3rd of March, 1838, at
the Academic des Sciences Morales et Politiques,
Prince de Talleyrand, who had to pronounce the eulo-
gium of Count Eeinhard, who had been consul, direc-
tor of foreign affairs, and ambassador, said, " How
many things a man must know to make a good consul,
for his duties are endless in their variety, and quite of
a different character from those of other officials of the
Foreign Office ; they demand a mass of practical know-
ledge for which special education is required. Consuls
should be able to fulfil, in the event of necessity, the
duties of judge, arbitrator, and reconciler. They must
be able to do the work of a notary, sometimes that of
a commissioner of the navy. They have to look after
sanitary matters, and from them is expected, owing
to their general relations, a clear idea of the state of
trade and navigation, and of the industry peculiar to
their place of residence. Thus, M. Eeinhard, who
took the utmost care to be accurate in the information
which he was able to give his Government, and in the
steps which he had to take as consular and political
agent, and as administrator of the navy, had made a
profound study of general and maritime law. This
study had led him to the conclusion that a time would
come when, by carefully prepared combinations, a
general system of trade and navigation would be
established, by means of which the interests of all

u2

284 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

nations would be safeguarded, and the bases of which
would be such that war itself would not affect its
principle, even if it had the effect of temporarily
suspending its application."

The representatives of the Powers to whom the
Yienna Congress of 1815 attributed a diplomatic cha-
racter, are ambassadors, ministers plenipotentiary,
resident ministers, charges d'affaires. Since then,
this recognition has been extended to consuls-general
in those residences where they enjoy the title of agent,
as for instance, in Egypt.

Prince Metternich, in the course of a conversation
which I had with him at Vienna, towards the close of
his life, expressed views similar to those of Talleyrand,
adding, " Politics are a science, diplomacy is an art."

Prince Talleyrand, who was unquestionably an in-
comparable diplomatic artist, said in his speech at the
Institute: —

" Diplomacy is not a science of ruse and duplicity.
If straightforwardness is of prime value anywhere, it
is in political transactions, for it is that which renders
them solid and durable. People have confused reserve
and ruse. Straightforwardness is incompatible with
ruse, but it is not inconsistent with reserve, which,
indeed, strengthens the feeling of confidence."

M. de Talleyrand died three months after making
these remarks at a sitting which excited considerable
interest. The Moniteur Universel gives the names of
the principal members of the Institute who were pre-

THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES Of CONSULS. 285

sent, viz., Boyer-Collard, Quartremere de Quincy,
Bassano, Guizot, Thiers, Mignet, Cousin, Villemain,
Lemercier, Mole, Fauriel, Montalivet, Sainte-Aulaire,
de Barante, de Jaucourt, de Flahaut, Bertin de
Vaux, de Noailles, de Valencay, etc. M. de Talley-
rand entered the room leaning on the arm of M.
Mignet.

XIII.

THE FRENCH ACADEMY.

MDE LESSEPS, having been elected by the
• French Academy to the chair left vacant by
the death of Henri Martin, took his seat for the first
time on the 23rd of April, 1885, and delivered the
following address : —

" In admitting me among you, you have both con-
ferred upon me a great satisfaction and placed me in a
position of great embarrassment. To form part of the
French Academy, this distinguished assembly, this
elective aristocracy of letters, is an honour of which
the proudest is entitled to be proud; but to speak
before it is a task which may make even a clever
writer hesitate, and I am, unfortunately, neither the
one nor the other. The reception speech was there-
fore doubly formidable, both for me and for you. This
is why I am anxious at the outset to reassure you.
You are not about to hear a piece of oratory. I
would not subject either my inexperience or your
forbearance to so rude an ordeal. Unable to do well,
I have done better — I have studied brevity.

"Your ancestors had the habit of summoning to
the Academy of Letters, not merely men of letters,

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 287

but men of mark — prelates, generals, and great
nobles, whose high position was a substitute for elo-
quence, and sometimes even for knowledge. Was this
why the speech delivered in such cases was reduced to
the narrow proportions of returning thanks? Possibly.
In any event, seeing that you have revived for me
the first part of this tradition, allow me to benefit by
the second; and seeing that you have been good
enough to let a man of tetters in partibus enter, as
formerly, your society, do not be surprised if he con-
fines himself, as formerly, to a simple expression of
gratitude.

" The chair I noVr occupy is the one successively
occupied by M. Thiers and M. Henri Martin. Both
were friends of mine — which is tantamount to saying
that I am not ignorant of the dissimilarity between
them and me, or of the distance which separates us.
They were chiefly men of study ; I am chiefly a man
of action. They were historians, and I am a geo-
grapher— after a fashion. But if I differ from them
on many points, there is one on which I claim to
resemble them. Both passionately loved their country,
and in that respect at least I do not feel myself un-
worthy to succeed them. Like them, I have devoted my
entire life to my country. For more than sixty years,
in various situations and with various fortune, anxiety
for its interests and glory has been my ruling idea,
the constant aim of my labours, and finally, as I am
confident, the cause of my success.

288 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

" And such an aim required long exertions. No-
thing is easy in this world, especially the useful.
There is no fresh task, however beneficent, which has
not, perhaps in the very ratio of the good it may do,
the ignorant and the malevolent for enemies; the
former, because they fail to understand the result
which you are aiming at, and are not in the secret of
your means or strength. They have to be enlightened.
Once converted, they become fervent disciples and
valuable auxiliaries. As to the others, the sceptics,
the haters, even the insulters, they deserve no atten-
tion. The Arab proverb says, ' The dogs bark, the
caravan passes.' I passed on.

" If I thus explain my views to you with an emphasis
which may seem complacent, it is not for the empty
pleasure of talking of myself ; it is to justify you in
your own eyes for having chosen me by showing the
similitudes existing between my predecessor and my-
self. And as I am on this point there is one more
which I wish to notice in passing. Both of us were
accused, at starting, of a little too much imagination.
You know that in the poetical and ardent moments of
youth, and when entering on the study of the early
times of our race, Henri Martin — so at least it is said
— was smitten with the Druidical religion. This Celt
of St. Quentin had been initiated, it is alleged, into
the mysteries of the terrible religion. He was even
suspected of having secretly embraced it and of prac-
tising its rites in private. Is this true or false ? Did

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 289

he go through this excess of enthusiasm and convic-
tion ? It is far from certain ; but what matters it ?
In any case, did it prevent his writing later on the
most complete history of France yet issued ?

u As for me, if I am not suspected of being a Druid,
I was formerly charged with being a dreamer. This
was the beginning of my enterprises. I fancy that I
have since proved myself a practical man. I do not,
however, for all that, disparage dreamers. A little
imagination is a good leaven for the heavy dough of
human affairs. The more distant the goal the higher
you must aim. It is well for the sculptor to seek a
mountain for cutting out his first statue. It is not
amiss for the positive man to have to throw off his
mind a little of the impracticable and unattainable.
It is not amiss that, fancying himself omnipotent, he
has thought of attempting everything. Experience
will only too soon cut off what was impossible in his
illusion ; but his works will always retain something
strong and forcible to support them, his intelligence
something grand to elevate it. From the St. Simonian
aberration, now happily forgotten, there nevertheless
sprang accomplished engineers, distinguished econo-
mists, and first-class financiers. M. Thiers began by
writing criticisms of pictures. Claude Bernard him-
self, your illustrious colleague, began with a tragedy.
You have not that, at least, to twit me with.

" I spoke just now of the history of France, written
by Henri Martin. It is his chief work ; it is in all

29o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the libraries ; better still, it is in the memories of all.
I do not wish to dwell on its literary merits, not be-
cause there is any lack of good to be said of it, but
because I fear I should not say it sufficiently well.
Besides, it is not a speech that I am now making, and
if I stop to mark with a word what seems to me the
special note of his talent, it is because it is at the same
time that of his character.

" Each historian has his peculiarity. M. Michelet
has poetry. Every moment his imagination opens
wide views over new horizons, through which the
mind roams in amazement. Augustin Thierry, an
enthusiastic scholar, of a race of writers who called
back to life a world that had passed away, is above all
things a painter in clear lines, with an incomparable
gift of colour. The history of Guizot, like that of Mignet,
is a system, philosophical in the one, political in the
other, showing in the movement of the facts their
sequence, their consequences, and their causes. Thiers
excels in recounting events, in bringing situations
clearly before us, in elucidating the most special and
most obscure questions. His ruling quality is clear-
ness. That of Henri Martin is justice.

"And this love of justice which is in his mind
comes from the love of country which is in his heart.
Although a man with convictions, even a party man,
absolute in his faith, invariable in his conduct, he puts
aside all passion when he enters into history. A
sympathising witness of all our glories, he withholds

THE FRENCH A CADEMY. 291

his admiration from none. He is as enthusiastic an
admirer of the Druids as of the martyrs of the first
Christian Church, of Jeanne d'Arc as of Henri IY., of
the victories of Louis XIY. as of those of the First
Bepublic, of the First Empire as of the Convention.
For him it is France that is concerned, and her only
he sees. No restriction checks his patriotism, no cal-
culation diminishes it. Whatever be their opinions
or their beliefs, all those who serve and benefit France
are his friends. This is a fine example to recommend
and to follow. Woe to those peoples who, driven to
fanaticism by party spirit, mutilate their traditions,
not understanding that a nation is a being, never
ceasing to live, whose present cannot be separated
from its past without existence itself being arrested.

" And from this past, so mournful and so glorious,
Henri Martin draws an invigorating lesson; a con-
fidence that nothing will repress, a hope that nothing
will discourage : ' The Frenchman who knows the
history of his country,7 he says, ' will never lose hope
in the saddest days. This people is endowed with an
incomparable spring of life, with a power of renova-
tion which has never been met with to the same
degree in any other people.'

"I am proud that you have thought of me to suc-
ceed to the man who uttered such words. This double
sentiment of pride in the past and of faith in the future
is as deeply rooted in my heart as it was in his. It is
by this community of hope that I am proudest of re-

292 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

sembling him. And having now sufficiently proved
my good will, in default of talent, I stop, not wishing
to exceed the limits which I was, in a measure, bound
to lay down for myself. He who will succeed me,
following the more recent practice, will speak to you
hereafter — as far hence, I assure you, as I can
make it — with more fulness, competence, and charm
of the merits of the impartial historian, the honest
man, the great patriot, who was my predecessor. He
will doubtless express to the Academy better than
I can his gratitude as a newly elected member ; but
he will not have, at the bottom of his heart, more
respect than I have for the memory of Henri Martin,
or more gratitude towards you. In 1834, on entering
the Academy, M. Thiers said, ' I thank you for having
admitted me to a seat in this asylum of free and quiet
thought.' I thank you, in my turn, for having ad-
mitted me into this asylum of free and quiet thought?
although I do not promise to remain quietly seated in
my chair."

EEPLY OF M. EENAN.

M. Eenan, the Director of the Academy, spoke as
follows in reply: —

" Monsieur, — Your address is charming, for it is
your very self. I may tell you that we were not quite
easy in our minds while you were preparing it, being
afraid lest, for once in your life, you should deem it
incumbent upon you to make a literary composition.

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 293

Your exquisite tact has saved you from making this
mistake, and I detect in the tone of your observations
the geniality and the contagious warmth which are
the charm of your conversation. I was sorry to note
the absence of certain anecdotes which are familiar to
you, and I miss, for instance, certain details that you
know about Abraham and Sarah, and about Joseph
and the Queen of Sheba. A number of things which
you know more about than any one else are absent
from your speech, but nothing which is yourself is
missing. You possess the greatest and the rarest
literary quality of the present day — that of being
natural. You never went in for declamation. Your
eloquence consists of that manly and straightforward
way of communicating with the public of which the
example has been set by England and America. No
one, assuredly, in our age, has been more persuasive
than you, and in consequence no one has been more
eloquent. Yet no one has taken less account of the
artifices of language, or of the empty forms which are
animated by no ardent conviction.

" You remarked upon one occasion: 'I approve of
Latin and Greek being taught to our children, but what
we must not neglect is to teach them to think wisely
and to speak bravely.' That is what I so admire.
You abhor rhetoric, and you are perfectly right.
Ehetoric is, in addition to poetics, the only error we
have to reproach the Greeks with. After having pro-
duced masterpieces themselves, they thought that they

294 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

could lay down rules for others to do the same, in
which they were much mistaken. For there is no
more an art of writing than there is an art of speaking.
To speak well is equivalent to thinking aloud. Success
either in speaking or writing has never but one cause
— absolute sincerity. "When you excite the enthusiasm
of a meeting and succeed in reducing that which is
the most obdurate thing in the world to metaphors,
and the most refractory to the artifices of the so-called
art of fine talking — I mean capital — it is not your
words but your individuality which attracts; or, I
should rather say, your whole person speaks; you
exercise a charm. You have that supreme gift which
works miracles, like faith, and which is in truth of the
same order. Charm has its secret motives, but not its
definite reasons. Its action is wholly spiritual. You
obtain the same amount of success at Chicago, a city
which is not a third your age, as you do in the ancient
cities of Europe. You convince the Turk, the Arab,
the Abyssinian, the Paris speculator, and the Liverpool
merchant, by reasons which differ only in appearance.
The true reason of your ascendancy is that people
detect in you a heart full of sympathy for all that is
human ; a genuine passion for ameliorating the lot of
your fellow-creatures. You have in you that ' Misereor
super turbas' (I have pity upon the masses) which
is the sentiment of all great organisers. People love
you and like to see you, and before you have opened
your mouth you are cheered. Your adversaries call

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 295

this your cleverness ; we call it your magic. Ordinary
minds do not understand the seduction exercised by
great minds. The fascination of the magician escapes
the vulgar mind ; the qualities of enchantment are a
gracious gift, and because they are imponderable
mediocrity denies that they exist, whereas it is the
imponderable which does in reality exist. Humanity
will always be led by the secret love-philters of which
the crowd sees only the superficial effects, just as the
illuminant of the physical world is in the invisible
fluids which the ordinary eye cannot discern.

"Your eloquence has captivated the whole world,
and has surely entitled you to a place in our midst.
The programme of our company is not a purely literary
one, carried out with no ulterior aim, and ending in
the frivolities which proved the ruin of Oriental litera-
tures. It is things or deeds which are beautiful;
words in themselves have no beauty outside the noble
or true cause which they serve. What matters it
whether Tyrteus was a man of talent or not. He
succeeded, he was as good as an army. The Marsel-
laise is, whatever musicians and purists may say, the
greatest song of modern times, inasmuch as it leads
men on to combat and to victory. "When we reach
these altitudes personal merit is of small account ; all
depends on predestination, or on our success, if that
word be preferred. It is no use saying that a general
ought to have won a battle if he loses it. The great
general — and this applies equally to politics — is the

296 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

man who succeeds, not the one who ought to have
succeeded.

"Thus, the persons who were at first surprised to
hear of your election were but very imperfectly ac-
quainted with the spirit which governs our company.
You have cultivated the most difficult of styles — one
which has for a long time been abandoned among us —
that of action. You are one of the small band of those
who have maintained the ancient French tradition of a
brilliant and glorious existence, one useful to all your
fellow men. Politics and warfare are too lofty appli-
cations of the human intelligence for the Academy
ever to have passed them over. Marshal de Villars,
Marshal de Belle-Isle, Marshal de Eichelieu, and
Marshal de Beauvau, had no more literary titles to
election than you have. They had won victories.
Failing this qualification, which has become a rare one,
we have chosen the master par excellence in the art of
overcoming difficulties, the hardy speculator who has
always won his wager in the pursuit of the probable ;
the virtuoso who has practised with such consummate
tact the great and lost art of life. If Christopher
Columbus lived in our day we should have made him
a member of the Academy. The man who is quite
certain to be a member is the general who one day
brings back victory to our standard. We shall not
quarrel with him as to the nature of his prose, and
shall regard him as a very fit member of the Academy.
"We shall elect him by acclamation, without concern-

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 297

ing ourselves as to his writings. What a splendid
gathering that will be when he is received ! In what
demand seats will be, and lucky the academician who
presides on that occasion !

" You have been one of those fortunate workers who
seem to have been taken into the confidence of what
the genius of civilisation requires at a given moment.
The first duty which man has had to impose upon him-
self in order to become in reality master of the planet
which he inhabits has been to rectify, in view of his
requirements, the combinations, in many cases opposed
to these requirements, which the revolutions of the
globe, ignoring altogether the interests of humanity,
have inevitably produced. What would have been the
fate of our planet if the parts of it which emerge had
been much smaller than they are ? if the field of evo-
lution of terrestrial life had not been larger than Easter
Island or Tahiti ? What historical fact has ever pro-
duced such consequences as that action of the sea
which suddenly brought Cape Gris-Nez and the cliffs
of Dover into being, and created France and England
by separating them ? Sometimes beneficial, these
blind chances of unforeseeing nature are sometimes
also very baleful, and then it is the duty of man, by
skilful readjustment, to rectify the evil services which
the blind forces of ancient times have done him. It
has been said, and with much truth, that if physical
astronomy possessed sufficiently powerful means, we
should be able to judge as to the more or less

VOL. II. X

2q8 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

advanced civilisation of the inhabited worlds by the
criterion as to whether their isthmuses were pierced
or not.

" For a planet is only ripe for progress when all its
inhabited parts have reached that stage of close re-
lationship which constitutes a living organism, so that
no one part can enjoy, suffer, or act without the other
parts feeling in harmony. We have reached that
critical stage in the history of our own planet.
Formerly, China, Japan, India, and America might
have been convulsed by revolution without Europe so
much as knowing of it. For long centuries the Atlantic
divided the habitable globe into two parts as distinct
one from the other as if they were two different worlds.
Now, the stock exchanges of Paris and London are
affected by what occurs at Pekin, in the Congo, in
Kordofan, or in California ; there are but few dead
parts in the body of humanity. The electric telegraph
and the telephone have annihilated distance as regards
the things of the mind, while railways and steam navi-
gation have multiplied tenfold the facilities of bodily
movement. It was inevitable, therefore, that our
century should regard as an essential part of its work
the removal of the obstacles to rapid communication.
It was impossible surely that the generation which
had tunnelled the Mont Cenis and the St. Gothard
should be arrested by a few sandbanks or reefs of
rock at Suez, Corinth, and Panama !

"You, sir, have been the chosen artisan for this

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 299

great work. The Isthmus of Suez had long since
been selected as that the piercing of which was the
most urgent. Antiquity had pointed it out, and had
attempted the enterprise, but with insufficient means.
Leibnitz had indicated this work to Louis XIV. as
one worthy of his might. But the completion of such
a work demanded a faith which the seventeenth
century did not possess. It was the French Revolu-
tion which, reviving the age of fabulous expeditions and
a state of heroic youth in which man is guided in his
adventures by the flight of birds and the signs in the
heavens, propounded this problem in such a shape that
it could no longer be left dormant. The piercing of
the isthmus was part of the programme which the
Directory set before the Egyptian expedition. As in
the time of Alexander, the conquest of arms was also
the conquest of science. Upon December 24th, 1798,
our illustrious colleague, General Bonaparte, started
from Cairo accompanied by Berthier, Monge, Ber-
thollet, and other members of the Institute, as well as
by merchants who had obtained leave to follow in his
escort. On the 30th he lighted, to the north of Suez,
upon the vestiges of the old canal, and he followed
them for a distance of more than twelve miles. On
January 3rd, 1799, he saw,- near Belbeys, the other
end of the canal of the Pharaohs. The researches of
the Egyptian Commission have formed the basis of all
subsequent investigations, and the only point in which
they were defective was the view as to the difference

X2

300 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

in level of the two seas, a theory always opposed by
Laplace and Fourrier.

" The great St. Simonian School, which had so lofty
a comprehension of the common labour of humanity,
took up the idea and sealed it by martyrdom. More
than twelve engineers of the St. Simon School died of
the plague in 1833, at the great dam of the Mle.
Amid much that was obscure and visionary, one great
truth was perceived, viz., that Egypt has an excep-
tional place in the history of the world. The key to
the interior of Africa by the Nile, it is by its isthmus
also the guardian. The most important point in the
empire of the seas, Egypt is not a nation, it is
a State, sometimes the recompense of a maritime
dominion legitimately won, sometimes the punish-
ment of an ambition which has not measured its
strength.

" A country which has such important relations to
the rest of the world cannot belong to itself. It is
neutralised for the benefit of humanity. The national
principle is put to death there. We are surprised to see
among the mad thoughts which passed through the
mind of Nero, during the hours which separated his
fall and his death, the idea of going before the people
in a suit of mourning and asking them, in exchange
for the Empire of Eome, to give him the Prefecture
of Egypt. It is a fact that the Prefecture of Egypt
will always be an independent one. The ruler of
Egypt will never bear the same name as other Sove-

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 301

reigns. Egypt will always be governed by the
civilised nations collectively. The reasonable and
scientific explorers of the world's history will always
turn with curious, anxious, or attentive glances to-
wards this wonderful valley.

" France for three-quarters of a century has had
before her mind a solution of this difficult problem,
which will be fully appreciated when experience has
shown what torrents of blood and tears the other
solutions would have cost the world. She conceived
the idea of establishing, by means of a dynasty,
Mussulman in name, but in reality free from fana-
ticism and prompt to recognise the superiority of the
West, the reign of modern ideas in this exceptional
land, which cannot, without great detriment to the
general welfare, be allowed to lapse into barbarism.
Through Egypt, thus organised and safeguarded,
civilisation had her hand upon the whole of the
Eastern Soudan. The dangerous cyclones which
Central Africa will from time to time produce, since it
has imprudently been allowed to become Mahometan,
would have been suppressed. European science had a
free hand in a country which has, so to speak, been
placed at its disposal as a field for study and experi-
ment. But there should have been something like
method observed in carrying out this excellent plan.
We should not have weakened a dynasty by means of
which the point of the sword of Europe reached
almost to the Equator. More especially should an

3o2 - RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

eye have been kept upon the Mosque of El-Azhar,
the centre from which the Mussulman propaganda has
been spread all over Africa. Isolated and abandoned
to fetishism, the races of the Soudan are of little
account ; but converted to Islam they become foci of
intense fanaticism. From want of foresight, we have
allowed an Arabia much more dangerous than the
true Arabia to be formed west of the Nile. Has it
not surprised you, Sir, that there is not yet in that
spot a common sensorium of the great interests of
the world ? It is clear that there is a guardian
angel of humanity who prevents it from stumbling
into all the ditches lining its way. If there were
only diplomatists, I would as lief see our poor
species intrusted to the care of a band of truant
schoolboys.

The origin of your enterprise dates from the com-
mencement of that dynasty of Mehemet-Ali which
saw the light under the auspices of France, and
which, upon the other hand, has been severely shaken
by a passing declension in the fortunes of our country.
Your father was the first French agent who resided in
Egypt after the departure of our army. He was
charged by the First Consul and by M. de Talleyrand
with the task of counterbalancing the tyranny of the
Mamelukes, which had the approval of the English.
Your father's chief of the Janissaries brought to him
one day, as being capable of combating the prevailing
anarchy, a young Macedonian who was then in com-

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 303

raand of a thousand Albanians, and npon which the
French expedition had made a very deep impression.
This compatriot of Alexander could neither read nor
write. His fortune grew rapidly, and as he forgot
nothing which had been done either for or against
him, when you arrived in Egypt at the beginning of
1832 as a student-consul, the powerful Viceroy at
once took you into favour. Mohammed Said, one of
his sons, was your early friend. You took a strange
hold over him, and when he came to the throne you
reigned conjointly with him. Through you he dimly
perceived an ideal of light and justice for which his
soul thirsted, but which dark clouds, issuing from a
deep abyss of barbarism, still veiled for a time from
his eyes.

You have described, in that easy and natural style
which is all your own, the details of this intimacy
which has been so big with consequences of the
gravest import to the whole world ; you have told us
of his strange alternations of passion and good sense,
of the enthusiasm for science of a nature but just
removed from absolute ignorance, of the torrents of
tears which succeeded his outbursts of mad fury, of
the peals of laughter and of his ungovernable vanity :
in short, of the struggle between a Tamerlane and a
Marcus Aurelius. Your account of the wonderful
journey which you made with him to the Soudan is a
document of incomparable value for the student of
Oriental psychology. The story of how, upon one

304 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

occasion, he threw his sword across the room, fearing
that in a moment of passion he might strike you
with it, and how, when he had calmed down, you
found him in tears because you had anticipated him
in suggesting ideas of reform, is typical of the
Eastern despot. The barbarian is always more or
less of a child, and Mohammed's friendship was a
glass which the least pressure of jealousy might break.
You felt this, and your well-stored and supple mind
provided for every contingency. It is only men of
strong character who can deal properly with bar-
barians. Said had taken with him a service of Sevres
china for his own use, and he had given you another
for your own use. The Viceroy's service, for want of
proper care, was soon broken, while yours was intact.
This would never do, so upon one occasion the well-
trained camel which bore your service was replaced
by a very skittish and almost savage camel. You
were too sensible to remonstrate, and in a few minutes
your service of china was broken to bits. The
Viceroy nearly cracked his sides with laughter, and
the work of the isthmus was safe. For from this
period the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez was your
constant preoccupation, and you had almost succeeded
in getting your all-powerful friend to embrace your
idea. Your views in this matter dated from an
incident which followed your arrival in Egypt. You
came from a country which had a clean bill of health
to a country infested with disease ; and, in obedience

THE FRENCH A CADE MY. 305

to a rule of logic which has never been altered,
you were compelled to submit to a long quarantine at
Alexandria. M. Mimaut, the French consul, to
beguile the tedium of your confinement, brought you
the great work published by the Egyptian Commis-
sion, specially commending to your notice Lepere's
treatise upon the junction of the two seas. It was in
this way that you became acquainted with the isthmus
and its history. Henceforward the ambition to realise
what others had conceived took hold upon you, and
though you had to wait twenty-three years, nothing
rebuffed you. You were born to pierce isthmuses,
and antiquity would have made a myth of you. You
are the man of our age upon whose forehead is
most clearly written the sign of an unmistakable
vocation. The principle of great deeds is to take
possession of force where it is to be found, to pur-
chase it at its proper price, and to know how to make
use of it. In the present condition of the world
barbarism is still an immense depot of living forces.
Your keen and open intelligence saw that immense
power is often invested in hands incapable of making
use of it, and that this power is at the disposal of any-
one who knows how to employ it. You frankly
take human affairs as they are. You do not mind
the contact of stupidity and folly. It is all very well,
you say, for those who do not touch the realities of
life to be fastidious and to remain immaculate.
Humanity is composed of two thousand millions of

306 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

poor ignorant creatures, to whom a small band of the
elect, marked with a sign, are to impart reason,
justice, and glory.

" Avaunt with the faint-hearted and the fastidious !
avaunt with the over-nice, who would fain emerge
without a speck of mud from the battle with stupidity
and evil ! They are not fitted for a work which
demands piety rather than disgust, a proud and lofty
heart, true kindness, which often differs very much
from superficial philanthropy ; something, in short, of
the wide-embracing sentiment of Scipio Africanus,
who, in reply to some trivial cavilling said: 'On
such and such a day I won the battle of Zama ; let
us go up to the Capitol and return thanks to the
gods.'

" It is to the East that you owe that gait, as of the
Arab horse, which has sometimes startled your more
timid friends. The East inspires a craving for grand
adventures, for in the East the era of grand and fruit-
ful adventures is not yet run out. The sight of
sheep without a shepherd inspires one with the idea of
taking charge of the flock. How often in Syria I
have envied the sub -lieutenant who accompanied me !
It may be that the man who is destined to found
order and civilisation in the East is even now growing
to manhood in some cadet school. You avoid in your
appreciation of man the narrow judgments of implac-
able idea-mongers, who believe that all races of men
are of equal value, and of flint-hearted theorists

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 307

who see no necessity for the humble in the scheme of
creation. Those people of the Lake of Mensaleh, who
constructed the banks of your canal by gathering up
the mud in their large hands and squeezing the water
out of it against their chests, will have their place in
the kingdom of God. Inferior, no doubt, they are,
these poor human families, so cruelly treated by fate,
but they are not, on that account, excluded from the
common work. They may produce great men, and
sometimes with one sudden bound they outshine us ;
they are capable of prodigies of abnegation and devo-
tion. Such as they are, you love them. You are
an optimist, Sir, and you are quite right. The height
of art is to work good with evil, to achieve what is
great with mean materials. This transcendant game is
to be won by the sympathy and the love which one
feels for men and which one inspires in them for one-
self, by the audacity with which one persuades one-
self that the cause of progress is gained and that one
is contributing to it. The men of the East are above
all things susceptible to being charmed, and you
succeeded admirably in this. Your frankness and
ease of demeanour inspired them with unbounded
confidence. Sa'id could not live without you. Your
perfect riding won the hearts of the old school of
Mehemet-Ali, which was more adept at mounting a
horse than in mental pursuits. On November the
30th, 1854, you were out in the desert with Said. The
Viceroy's tent was pitched upon an eminence formed

308 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

of loose stones. You had observed that there was a
spot where you could jump with your horse over the
parapet, and this was the route you chose. You
ought by good right to have broken your neck, but
in the East a rash act often answers as well as a wise
one. Your hardihood excited universal admiration,
and that same day the charter was signed. Said from
that hour regarded the piercing of the Isthmus as his
own special work, and he brought to bear upon it the
tenacity of an enthusiast and the vanity of a barbarian.
"Within a month from that time you started upon
your first exploring of the desert over which you
were in fifteen years to win so decisive a victory.

" These fifteen years were like a dream, worthy to
be included in the c Arabian Nights ' or Massoudi's
1 Golden Prairies.' Your ascendancy over that world
so strangely endowed with rough-and-ready energy was
something incredible. You astonished M. Barth&emy
St. Hilaire, who could follow you at last no longer.
You were, in short, a king, and you enjoyed the advan-
tages of sovereignty, and learnt the great lesson which
it teaches, that of indulgence, pity, pardon, and dis-
dain. I have seen myself your kingdom in the desert.
When crossing the Ouadi from Zagazig to Ismailia,
you gave me as guide one of your subjects. He was,
I believe, an ex-brigand whom you had for a time at-
tached to the cause of order. While explaining to me the
way to handle an old sixteenth-century musket, which
formed part of his armament, he unbosomed himself

THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 309

to me of his inmost sentiments, which may be summed
up in unbounded admiration for you. You had your
faithful disciples— I was almost going to say your
fanatics — in the camp of those who might be regarded
as your enemies. At Isma'ilia we met an English
lady who was watching very intently the progress of
your workmen to see whether the prophecies of the
Bible were not being confirmed. She took us to see
some tufts of grass and flowers which the infiltrations
<»f the sweet-water canal had caused to spring up on
the sand. This seemed conclusive to her, for was it
not written in the o5th chapter of Isaiah that, before
the coming of the Messiah, ' the desert shall rejoice
and blossom as the rose ' ! You had some fancy ready
to suit every one's taste, and supplied them all with a
dream after their own heart.

" The word religion is not too strong to express the
enthusiasm which you excited. Your work was for
several years a sort of gospel of redemption, an era of
grace and pardon. The idea of rehabilitation and
moral amnesty always occupy a large place in the
origin of religions. The brigand is grateful to whom-
soever comes to preach a jubilee which has the effect
of creating a new departure. You were kind to those
who came and offered their services. You made them
feel that their past would be wiped out, that their
offences would be absolved, and that they would begin
their moral life anew if they were in earnest to help
you pierce the Isthmus. There are so many people

3io RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

ready to amend their ways if only one will pass the
sponge over some incident in their career. Upon one
occasion, a whole troop of convicts who had escaped
from some prison on the shores of the Adriatic
swooped down upon the Isthmus as upon a land of
promise. The Austrian consul demanded their sur-
render, but you spun out the negotiations, and in a
few weeks' time the consul was busily employed in
forwarding the money which these worthy fellows
wanted to send home to their poor relations, perhaps
to their victims. The consul thereupon begged you
to keep them, as you had succeeded in turning them
to such excellent account. In a report of one of your
lectures, I remember reading : ' M. de Lesseps stated
that men were trustworthy and not at all evilly dis-
posed when they have enough to live upon. Man
only becomes evil through hunger or fear.' We
should perhaps add : £ or when he is jealous.' You
went on to say : i I have never had to complain of
my workmen, and yet I have employed pirates and
convicts. Work has made honest men again of them
all ; I have never been robbed even of a pockethand-
kerchief. The truth is that our men can be got to do
anything by showing them esteem and by persuading
them that they are engaged upon a work of world-
wide interest.'

" You have thus caused to blossom once more a flower
which seemed faded for ever. You have given in this
sceptical age of ours, a striking proof of the efficacy

THE FRENCH A CADEMY. 3 1 1

of faith, and verified in their liberal sense that lofty
saying : ' I say unto you that if ye have faith as a
grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this moun-
tain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall
remove.' The devotion of your staff was immense.
I spent a night at Chalouf-el-Terrabah, in a hut
inhabited only by one of your employe's. That man
filled me with admiration : he was convinced that he
was fulfilling a mission, he regarded himself as a
sentinel placed in an advanced post, as a missionary of
France, and an agent of civilisation. All of your
men believed that the eyes of the world were fixed
upon them and that every one was interested in their
doing their duty.

"It is all this, Sir, that in electing you we were
anxious to recompence. "We are incompetent to
appreciate the work of the engineer; the merits of
the administrator, the financier, and the diplomatist are
not for us to discuss ; but we have been struck by the
moral grandeur of the work, by this resurrection of
the faith, not the faith in any particular dogma, but
the faith in humanity and its brilliant destinies. It is
not for the material work which we crown you, for
the blue riband which, as we are told, would earn for
us the esteem of the inhabitants of the moon, if
there were any. No, that is not what constitutes your
glory. Your glory consists in having set stirring this
latest movement of enthusiasm, this latest manifesta-
tion of self-devotion. You have renewed in our time

3i2 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the miracles of ancient days. You possess in the
highest degree the secret of all greatness, the art of
making yourself beloved. You have succeeded in
forming out of incoherent masses a small but compact
army, in which the best qualities of the French race
have appeared in all their eclat. Thousands of men
have found in you their conscience, their reason of
being, their principle of nobility or of moral renova-
tion.

" The amount of valour, bravery, and resources
of every kind which you have expended in this
struggle is something prodigious. What a fund of
good humour, more especially, must you not have
needed to answer patiently the many puerile objec-
tions which were raised: the moving sands of the
desert, the bottomless mud in Lake Mensaleh, the
threats of an universal deluge brought about by the
difference in level of the two seas ! During the first
two years your activity knew no bounds ; during that
time you travelled twenty-five thousand miles a year,
more than the distance round the world. You had to
convince Europe, especially England, our great and
dear rival. You conformed your habits to those of
the country. You went from town to town, with only
one companion, taking with you enormous maps,
loaded with pamphlets and prospectuses. When you
arrived in a towiij you went to the mayor or the prin-
cipal person of the locality, to offer him the chairman-
ship of the meeting ; then you selected your secre-

THE FRENCH A CADEMY. 3 1 3

tary, and after that called upon the editors of the
local papers. In that way you held thirty- two meet-
ings in the principal towns of the United Kingdom in
forty-five days. You spent your nights in correcting
the proofs of your previous day's speeches, and you
took away with you a thousand copies, which you dis-
tributed the following day. BjBMoft Library

"You do not scruple to use any of the means
which our century has made the essentials of success.
You do not disdain the press, and you are right ; for,
so far as regards its effect upon the public, the manner
in which a fact is related is far more important than
the fact itself. The press has in our day taken the
place of what formerly brought men into communica-
tion with one another, viz., correspondence by letter,
public speaking, books, and, I might almost add, con-
versation. To renounce the use of this powerful
engine is to renounce one's legitimate share in human
action. There are, I am well aware, many Puritanic
persons who are content with being right in their own
eyes, and who regard it as a humiliating obligation to
be right in the eyes of other people. I have an
infinite respect for this view, but I am afraid that
there is some little historical mistake about it. In
former days people gained the good- will of the sove-
reign and the court by methods very little better than
those with which, in our day, the favour of the public
is courted. The public at large are guided by their
newspaper; Louis XI Y. and Louis XY. saw through

VOL. II. Y

3i4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

the narrow spectacles of those about them. Turgot, the
most modest of men, had only to convince four per-
sons of his merit : first of all, Abbe Yery, his fellow-
student in the Sorbonne, a man of very enlightened
mind, who spoke of him with great admiration to a
very clever woman, Madame de Maurepas ; she men-
tioned him to her husband, and he presented him to
Louis XYI. "With universal suffrage the candidature
is not quite so simple an affair. But there is a reverse
to the medal. All that was needed to bring about the
fall of the Minister who alone might have saved the
monarchy were a few courtiers' epigrams and a
change in the views held by Maurepas. What a long
chapter might be written anent the blunders of a
limited suffrage ! Our time is not more frivolous than
those which preceded it. We are told that this is the
reign of mediocrity. Well, sir, this reign began
some time ago. The sum of good sense which emerges
from any given society for the purposes of govern-
ment has always been very small. The man cast in a
higher mould who is anxious to do what is right has
always been obliged to lend himself to the weakness of
the masses. Poor humanity ! In order to be of ser-
vice to it, one must adapt oneself to its measure, speak
its language, adopt its prejudices, and enter with it
into the workshop, the slums, the lodging-house, and
the tavern !

" You did well, therefore, not to allow yourself to
be baulked by the petty susceptibilities which, if they

THE FRENCH A CADEMY. 3 1 5

were taken too much account of, would make inactivity
to seem the highest wisdom. The days are dark ; we
are working in the night ; let us work on neverthe-
less. The Preacher spoke well when he said that no
one can tell whether the inheritor of the fortune which
he has built up will be wise or a fool. But did this
gifted philosopher draw thence the conclusion that we
should do nothing? Not at all. An inward voice
urges us on to action. Man does great deeds by
instinct, just as the bird wings its flight, guided
by a mysterious map which it carries within its
tiny brain.

" You have not disguised from yourself the fact
that the cutting of the isthmus would serve alter-
nately very varied interests. The great saying, { I
have come to bring not peace but war,' must have
frequently recurred to your recollection. The isthmus
cut becomes a strait — that is to say, a battle-field.
One Bosphorus had sufficed till now to give trouble
enough to the world. You have created another,
much more important than the first, for it does not
place in communication two parts of an inland sea.
It serves as a passage of communication between all
the great seas of the world. In case of maritime war
it would be the supreme interest, the point for the
occupation of which the whole globe would make a
rush. You have thus fixed the spot for the great
battles of the future.

" What more can we do than ring round the field

316 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

in which these blind forces meet, than favour in their
struggle towards existence all these obscure things
which groan, and weep, and suffer before being born ?
No disappointments shall stop us, we mean to be
incorrigible ; even amid our disasters works of uni-
versal importance still continue to tempt us. The
King of Abyssinia has said of you, < Lesseps is of the
tribe of light.' Truly, this king speaks words of
truth. We all belong to that tribe. It is a rule in
war to march in the direction of firing, from wherever
the sound comes. The duty of us civilians is to
march towards the light, often without quite knowing
whither it is leading us.

"You have rendered such full justice to Henri
Martin, your illustrious predecessor, that I need
scarcely revert to the subject. He was an excellent
citizen, and in all things his thoughts were those of
France. When the country took a step forward in
that which appears to have been his favourite policy,
he followed it; sometimes he even preceded it; but
in all things he was sincere. The word of command
which he appeared to receive from without in reality
came from himself, for he was in perfect harmony with
the circle in which he lived. He espoused all the
prejudices of which common opinion is composed so
honestly that he came to mistake them for primitive
and increated truths. But as he was a true Liberal,
he experienced no regret when his firmest conclu-
sions were arrested for a stage. He desired that

THE FRENCH A CADEMY. 3 1 7

progress should be made by the amelioration of
men's intelligence and by persuasion. He may
have had his illusions like the rest of us, but he
never allowed himself to be blinded except when
doubt might seem to him a want of generosity, a
sin against faith.*

* * * % *

" You have been wise, indeed, sir, to place the
centre of gravity of your existence above these heart-
rending uncertainties of politics, which often leave
one only the choice between two blunders. Your
glory will not suffer from any intermission. Already
you have almost entered upon the enjoyment of the
judgment of posterity. Your happy, vigorous, and
honoured old age recalls that of Solomon, less, no
doubt, its weariness. As to that, you have never
known what it meant ; and although you have been
very well placed to see that all is vanity, I doubt
whether that thought has ever suggested itself to
you. You must be very happy, sir; satisfied with
your life, and indifferent to death, for you are brave.
You feel somewhat uneasy, you said in one of your
lectures, when you reflect that on the day of judg-
ment the Creator may reproach you for having modi-
fied His handiwork. But let me assure you that
there is no ground for fear on this score. If there is
one person more than another as to whose attitude

:': Note of the Translator. — I have omitted here the remainder of
M. Kenan's remarks on the literary career of Henri M artin.

318 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

in the Valley of Jehoshaphat I am under no appre-
hension it is you. You will continue there to
play the charmer's part, and as to the Great Judge,
you will win Him over to you. You have im-
proved His work; He will assuredly be well pleased
with you.

" In the meanwhile, you will come and rest your-
self in our company after the indefatigable activity
which you have made the rule of your life. In the
intervals between your voyages from Suez to Panama,
and from Panama to Suez, you will communicate to
us your fresh observations as to the world, whether it
is improving or degenerating, whether it is growing
younger or older; whether, in process of time, as
isthmuses are pierced, the number of lofty and kindly
souls increases or diminishes. Our lives, mostly
passed in the shade, will be supplemented and com-
pleted by yours, all of which is spent in the open air.
Eor my own part, I never see you without fancying
what we might have accomplished together, if we had
associated to found some work in common. And, in-
deed, if I was not already an old man, I am not sure
that I should not propose some seductive and bene-
ficent scheme to you. But in order to do that, I
should be obliged to resign my post in the Academic
des Inscriptions et des Belles Lettres, the pure and
absolute friend of truth. This I shall never do, for I
derive too much pleasure from my connection with it.
And then the world is so strange ; as a rule it will

THE FRENCH AC AD EM F. 319

not allow that a man can be an adept at more than
one thing. The world listens to you when there is
an isthmus to be cut in twain; and there are certain
questions with respect to which it is pleased to give
me a favourable ear. Upon other subjects we are not
consulted, though we might, perhaps, have some good
advice to offer. The will of Providence be done;
we must not complain of the part which has been
assigned to us.

" Yours, assuredly, was a very enviable one. Next
to Lamartine, you have, I think, been the most be-
loved man of our century — the man upon whom the
greatest number of legends and dreams have been
built. We thank you, as we thank the great poet
who is seated by your side, and who introduces you
into our company, for having afforded — at a period the
great defect of which is the spirit of jealousy and
detraction — to our downcast people the opportunity
of exercising the noblest faculty of the human heart,
that of admiration and love. The nation which knows
how to admire and love is not at the point of death.
To those who tell us that the bosom of this people
has ceased to beat, that it has lost the faculty of
adoration, and that the spectacle of so many abortive
efforts and disappointments has extinguished all its
confidence in what is good, all its belief in what is
great, we reply with the names of you our two
beloved and glorious colleagues. We recall the wor-
ship which is paid you, these wreaths, these fetes

320 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS.

which as a rule are only celebrated after death, and
above all, those flutterings in the heart of the multi-
tude which the names of Victor Hugo and Ferdinand
de Lesseps ever awaken. This it is which consoles us
and bids us say with all confidence, ' Hapless and
dear land of France ! no, thou wilt not perish, for
thou still lovest and art still beloved.' "

.

THE END.

POINTED BY J. 8. VIKTUK AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.

Ett*/1*'

W9C