THE SUEZ CANAL A SEWER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6763, 21 July 1883, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SUEZ CANAL A SEWER.

Sin "W. P. Andrew sends to the Times the followiug extract from a letter -written by "a distinguished and most reliable traveller" who has recently passed through the Suez Canal : - '* The Canal is fast becoming a home for disease ?- 4 mischief, and something should be uuue without delay to change it. The frequent stations now contain a good many people, and are growing in size ; they have been constructed for facility's sake to drain into Oan.il, and the consequence is that the Canal is rapidly becoming a sewer. If you anchor at a small station for the night the stench is pretty bad ; at a large one it is horrible and most mischievous. There iB a Btanding joke among the ship doctors of persuading the passeogers it arises from an unfortunate camel who had just died at each station; but the unhappy fact is that diarrhoea and sickness at night are common on board the ships, and the evil is daily increasing. It is not possible to flush the Canal and carry off co many miles of sewage into the sea. But the sewage, properly attended to, and very easily too, would be a incalculable benefit to the land around if it was laid out upon it, and the manured land night bring in a handsome profit to the company."