FROM PORT SAID TO SUEZ BY THE CANALS.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 162, 6 February 1868, Page 2

FROM PORT SAID TO SUEZ BY THE CANALS.

{From the Times of India.') A correspondent writes : —" Sir, perhaps a short account of a trip I have lately made through the Suez Canals may be interesting to some of your readers. On arriving at Alexandria, on my way to Bombay, I found that I had a few days to wait for the departure of the steamer from Suez ; and, as I had heard in Paris that passengers could proceed from Port Said to Suez by the canal, I determined to try the experiment. No doubt some of your readers who have been home this year, will have noticed a small building in the Part to the Paris Exhibition devoted to the Suez Canal Company, in which some very interesting plans, models, and sections of the Canal works were exhibited. Within the last few months the Levant steamers of the French, Russian, Austrian, and Turkish lines have made Port Said a station, and as there is generally at least one steamer a week from Alexandria, I found I had only to wait a couple of days for the Russian steamer Oleg, bound for Constantinople via the Levant. I accordingly secured my berth, and was fortunate enough to find a fellcwcountryman from Alexandria, bou-id on the same journey as myself. After a pleasant trip of. twenty hours we found ourselves opposite the rising town of Port Said. From a distance it looks quite an important place, from the smoke proceeding from dredges and steam tugs at work in the harbor. The -entrance to the port is formed by an extensive break-water, tomposed of large blocks of artificial stone, running into the sea for nearly a mile and a-half. Immense dredging machines are at work deepening the channel, the soil being carried some distance out to sea by steam barges. The Olga—a vessel of about 1000 tons —anchored close to the centre of the town, and on landing we found the " Grand Hotel de France " directly in front of us. After securing rooms for the night, we sallied forth to see " the lions." Port Said may be briefly described. It reminds one a good deal of Mr Dicken's Eden, as it is evidently laid out with a view to its future greatness. Its population of 8000 French-

men, Italians, Greeks, and Levantines, inhabit about 1000 wooden houses, none of them particularly ornamental. A few of the houses on the Boulevard facing the sea .are of superior build, and look a good deal like Indian bungalows. The rest of the town consists of rows of houses, on the barrack system, for the workpeople, airy number of cafes and cabarets, few shops, a couple of hotels, and two or three chapels. The most cheerful feature of the place is the number of trim, neatlydressed women to be seen marketing and shopping ir the most business-like way. The harbor contained about a dozen English barques, laden chiefly with coal, and some dozen or fifteen smaller vessels carrying the various flags of the Mediterranean. Adjoining the harbor is a large building-yard, or rather dock, where the dredging machines, barges, and earth spouts, or whatever they are called, are constructed. Here are also situated the workshops and foundries of the contractors for this part of the work. After completing our tour of the town, we called at the Transport Office, and found that a small steamer was despatched every morning for Ismailia, whence we could proceed to Suez by the sweet canal. The whole "tranist is rcade in twenty,four hours, and the fare is 44 francs first-class.

The next morning, by 6 o'clock, we were on board the mail packet, a small screw steamer, about the size of a bunder boat, capable of holding some 30 passengers. By half-past six we had cleared out of the harbour and entered the canal, steaming away at the rate of six miles an hour. The width of the canal is to be about 120 yards, and for a considerable distance this width has been attained, but in many places not above 70 to 80 yards have yet been dredged. At these places we had opportunities of seeing the large dredgers at Avork, throwing the sand into huge spouts, along which it is forced on to the plain beyond the banks of the canal. The scenery is, of course, very tame, and indeed is often limited to the sides of the canal; and after an hour or two we were glad to kill time by a little light literature. About 11 o'clock we arrived at a small station called Cantara, 33 miles from Port Said, and here an hour was devoted to breakfast, and a very good meal for the money —three francs. Four hours more brought us to Lake Tirnsah, which is now filled up to the level of the Mediterranean, without the intervention of a single lock. On the western shore of the lake is the new town of Ismailia, so called in honor of the present Viceroy, as Port Said is after his predecessor. The situation of Ismailia is very pleasing, standing as it does on high ground overlooking the lake. The town is better built than Port Said, and contains a good hotel, with accommodation for 60 or 100 visitors. The head-quarters of the company are now located here, and as the climate is said to be healthy and remarkably pleasant in winter, it will probably be a place of importance, should the canal succeed. The present population is about 4000. The sweet water canal is here joined to Lake Timsah by a lock, through which a small steamer, the Prompt, from Glasgow to Abyssinia, had passed a few days before our arrival. Having spent a day in Ismailia, we secured places in the boat for Suez by the sweet water canal, with leave to stop a few hours at Seaapeum, a station about ten miles from Ismailia, and where the two canals are contiguous. The works on the maritime canal at this spot are very interesting, a cutting having to be made ahrough a range of the finest sand, which it was feared would fill up rapidly, and make it necessary for dredging machines to be ■constantly at work ; but it is stated that such has not been the case. A few dredgers were at work in the neighborhood of Serapeum, which itself simply consists of a few workshops, with the necessary houses for the work people. At the canteen we got a very fair dinner for five francs, and afterwards returned to the sweet water -canal just in time to catch the evening boat for Suez.

I should mention that, on the fresh water canal, the means of conveyance is a tow-boat, mules being the quadruped used instead of steam. After a pleasant sail through the desert, with the moon in all its glory, we reached Suez about seven o'clock in the morning, being landed within a quarter of :an hour's walk of the hotel. The only part of any importance we omitted seeing was the Chalfour section, about twelve miles north of Suez, where the canal bed has to be cut through a range of hills, not, however, of any great height. At Suez the work is chiefly going on in the roads, where several dredgers are employed deepening the way and gradually creeping up In a northerly direction. Immediately •opposite the front of the Suez Hotel

there is a small colony of the canal people, and the bed of the canal is traced out, and in some places partially cleared.

I would only add that Mons. Letseps is sanguine that the work will be completed by the end of 1869, at a cost of £12,000,000, .and the canal will be used by vessels representing three millions of tons per annum. In addition to this, he anticipates large profits from the sale of hind in its neighborhood, especially near Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez. Others, however, are not so sanguine ; but I must say, looking at what has already been done, I think there is a fair probability of the work being completed, but whether it will turn out a profitable speculation, is another affair.

Passengers from India, intending to visit Syria or Palestine, will find the canal ruute to Port Said preferable, I think, to the rail by Cairo, and, as all the steamers which leave Alexandria call at Port Said, they will find the same facilities at the latter place for proceeding to the Levant ports as they would at Alexandria. E. I. B. Bombay, 11th November, 1867.