Suez Canal
The greatest work of engineers in the last century was the constructing of the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal connects the Indian ocean with-the Mediterranean Sea. There were so many difficulties in the way of building the canal that only a man of great patience and courage helped by other people and even other nations could ever have carried out such a plan. Ferdinand de Lesseps was a great French man who constructed this canal.
He collected-money from England and Egypt and the work was started in 1859 at Port Said which at that time was a small place of only a few huts.
Labour was very difficult to get. At first Egyptian peasants were compelled to go and work on the canal without any payment. As this was very difficult for the peasants they were paid one Shillong a day. From twenty thousand to eighty thousand workers employed per day. Arabs, Egyptians, Greeks and Frenchmen took part in the construction of the canal. Some of the workmen came twelve hundred kilometers in order to work on the canal.
There were rocks which had to be cut by hand and as much as one thousand and five hundred workers were employed to do that work. The strong Egyptian fisher-men dug out the thick mud and carried it on their backs. The smell of mud made them sick. Afterwards engineers brought some machine to do this difficult work. They only needed twenty live percent of the workmen after tire machines were brought.
When the canal was finished it was a one hundred and forty-eight kilometers long. It was a great engineering achievement.
It was just ten years after the construction began, when the canal was opened to the ships. All the most important people in Europe were coming to the opening function. But at the last minute a rock was found at the bottom of the canal which the machines could not break. They got gun powder from Cairo and blew up the rock.
All the fireworks were placed ready for the great day when suddenly they went off and nearly set fire to the whole town of Port Said. Two thousand soldiers dashed in and saved the town by putting out the fire.
At last the great day came. The Empress of France and many other great people arrived. Fifty warships of different countries stood outside Port Said decorated with flags and with bands playing music. The sand of the desert was covered with tents. They had not seen a great day for Egypt for hundreds of years.
One of the British Ships to go through the canal carried telegraph cables. For four days the ships of the world went freely through the canal but afterwards ships had to pay. Queen Victoria welcomed Ferdinand de Lesseps and gave him the grand Cross of the star of Britain.
The canal is very important because it connects from East to the West.
