The impression is general that the Suez Canal is cut through immense deposits of sand, or sand and water, but this is quite erroneous. The desert, it is true, is sandy and sterile, but the sand is quite superficial, covering a gypseous clay, not at all difficult to work in. From Balah to the Bitter Lakes there is fine muddy sand, with clay at intervals, and at Serapeum a rocky barrier. From the Bitter Lakes to Suez, however, there is a good clay, with limestone at Shalouf. The sinuosities in the Canal are such as to render the passage of vessels over 400 feet long somewhat difficult. It was expected that these curves would prevent the washing away of the banks, but it is doubtful whether they have at all contributed to the preservation of the sandy embankments. Indeed, most of the predictions of the early destruction of the Canal by the operation of natural causes have been proved to be as ill-founded as such predictions generally are. The banks have no ill-regulated propensity for crumbling away. The Canal is _not_ in perpetual and imminent danger of being silted-up. The enormous and costly dredging operations that were to swallow more than the revenue of the undertaking are unknown, and the sole matter for regret is that the Canal was not made as wide again as it is, for the accommodation of the vast traffic it has created. Among the many confident prophesies made by professional engineers of the day, one stands recorded in the technical papers to the effect that every vessel must necessarily be towed through the Canal, the explanation being that the regulation speed of five miles per hour was not sufficient to afford steering “way”; hence, said the prophet, the slightest wind across the line of the Canal must infallibly blow ashore any vessel whose commander should have the temerity to attempt to steam between the two seas. Experience, however, has shown that the largest vessels are under perfect command when propelled by their own engines.
It is impossible for anyone to pass through the Canal without being impressed with the urgent necessity for vastly increased accommodation for the constantly augmenting traffic. The delays occasioned by the difficulties in coaling, the blocks in the Canal—caused sometimes by the enormous traffic, and sometimes by the sinking of a ship across the narrow channel—are most vexatious. No less than five days elapsed between the time of the arrival of our steamer at Port Saïd and of its departure from Suez, a distance of less than one hundred miles.