Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 by Various

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[1] Memoire sur l'Isthme de Suez, dans la Revue des deux Mondes, tom.
xxvii. 223.

[2] Plutarch in Anton., Sec. 81.--Langhorn's Translation, in 1 vol.,
p. 656.

[3] Plutarch in Anton., Sec. 69.--Translation, p. 652.

The canal was of far too great importance to the prosperity of Egypt,
and the revenues of the country were too immediately connected with its
existence, as one of the highways for exporting the produce of the
Delta, for the Romans to neglect its conservation. It is true that the
Romans never paid much attention to commerce, which they despised; and
during the long period they governed their immense empire in comparative
tranquillity, they did less to improve and extend its relations than any
other people of antiquity. But they were always peculiarly attentive to
preserve every undertaking which was connected with the agricultural
industry and land revenue of their provinces. Unless, therefore, their
attention had been directed to the canal of Suez, either as an important
military line of communication, or as an instrument for displaying the
pride and power of the empire, it would have undergone no improvement
under the Roman emperors.

It happened, however, that when Trajan became anxious to display his
magnificence in adorning Rome with new buildings, that the fashion of
the times rendered the granite and the porphyry in the neighbourhood of
the Red Sea indispensable. To obtain the immense columns, and the
enormous porphyry vases, which were then admired, with sufficient
celerity and in sufficient quantity, it became necessary to render the
canal navigable for a longer period of time every year. In order to
effect this, Trajan constructed a new canal from the vicinity of
Babylon, and connected it with the ancient canal through the valley of
Seba Biar.[1] This new work is called the river of Trajan by Ptolemy
the geographer; and as it gave an additional elevation of thirteen feet
to the stream which fed the canal, it may have supplied the means of
keeping the navigation open for about six months yearly.[2]

[1] Babylon was near Cairo.

[2] Ptolemy, lib. iv. 5.

The quarries of granite and porphyry which supplied the Romans in the
time of Trajan, were discovered by Sir Gardner Wilkinson and Mr Burton,
in the years 1821-22, at Djebel-Fattereh and Djebel-Dokhan; and
Monsieur Letronne has pointed out the connexion of these quarries with
the improvements made by Trajan in the canal.[1] Many large works of
porphyry exist, which must have been worked in the quarries of
Djebel-Dokhan. We need only enumerate the great porphyry vase in the
Vatican, which exceeds fourteen feet in diameter--that of the museum at
Naples, which is cut out of a block nearly as large--the tombs of St
Helen in the Vatican, and of Benedict XIII. in St John Lateran--and the
blocks of the porphyry column at Constantinople. It is evident that the
masses could never be conveyed from Djebel-Dokhan to the Nile by land;
but no great difficulty would be found in transporting them to Myos
Hormos on the Red Sea, and embarking them there for Arsinoee; from
whence their conveyance to Alexandria, by the canal and the Nile, was
easy. It is well known that the quarries of porphyry in Egypt could not
have grown into importance until after the reign of Claudius, as
Vitrasius Pollio sent the first porphyry statues which had been seen at
Rome as a present to that emperor.[2] The chief, if not the only
quarries of red porphyry known to the ancients were in the Thebaid, at
Djebel-Dokhan.

[1] Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. ii.

[2] Plinii Natur. Hist. xxxvi. 11.

At the granite quarries of Djebel Fattereh, Sir Gardner Wilkinson found
many columns in various stages of completion, some ready to be removed;
and of these there were several of the enormous size of fifty-five feet
long, and nearly eight feet in circumference. These quarries are at
least thirty miles distant from the Red Sea; but, as the ground affords
a continual descent, and some traces of the road exist, there cannot be
a doubt that these immense columns were destined to be carried to
Philotera, and there shipped for Arsinoee, and that, like the porphyry
vases, they were to find their way to Rome, by the canal, the Nile, and
the port of Alexandria. Sir Gardner Wilkinson has shown that these
granite quarries were abandoned not long after the reign of Hadrian; and
an inscription, quoted by Letronne, proves that the granite quarries at
Syene were first worked about the years A.D. 205-209. The great
facilities afforded by the Nile for transporting the largest columns
from Syene to Alexandria, appears to have caused the immediate
abandonment of the quarries of Djebel Fattereh; as the expense of
transporting the columns already finished was doubtless greater than the
cost of working and conveying new ones from Syene to Alexandria.

The canal of Trajan continued to be kept open, after the building mania,
to which it owed its origin, had ceased. It had extended the sphere of
the export trade of the Delta; and it continued to serve as the means of
transporting the blocks of porphyry--for which there was a constant
demand at Rome and Constantinople, and, indeed, in almost every city of
wealth in the Roman empire. Eusebius, in his ecclesiastical history,
mentions that the porphyry quarries of the Thebaid were worked during
the time of the great persecution, in the reign of Dioclesian. He says,
"that one hundred martyrs were selected from the innumerable crowd of
Christians condemned to labour in the Thebaid, in the place called
Porphyritis, from the marble which was quarried at the spot."[1]

[1] Eusebius, lib viii. c. 8.

In the reign of Justinian, we find these quarries still worked on a
considerable scale, as they are alluded to more than once by Paul the
Silentiary, in his description of the Church of St Sophia at
Constantinople. He affords evidence that the porphyry still continued to
be transported by the Nile to Alexandria; and though his words contain
no express mention of the canal, it is evident that the workmen of
Justinian would always prefer the easier road by Myos Hormos and
Arsinoee, to the almost impracticable task of conveying the blocks
across the desert.[1] In the reign of Justin I., the trade of the Red
Sea was of great importance, and must have created an immense demand
for the agricultural produce of Egypt. The King of Ethiopia, resolving
to attack Dunaan, the Jewish king of the Homerites in Arabia,
collected, during the winter, a fleet of seven hundred Indian vessels,
and six hundred trading ships, belonging to the Roman and Persian
merchants who visited his kingdom.[2]

[1] Pauli Silentianii Descripto Magnae Ecclesiae Sanctae Sophiae,
v. 379, 620.

[2] Acts of the Martyrs; Metaphrast. Ap. Sur. tom v. p. 1042.

After the reign of Justinian, it is not improbable that the repairs
necessary for maintaining the navigation of the canal open began to be
neglected, as we know that the population and industry of Egypt began to
decline. The tribute of grain to Constantinople, and the public
distributions to the people of Alexandria, appear to have exhausted all
the surplus produce of the country; and to facilitate their collection,
Justinian forbade the exportation of grain from any part of Egypt but
Alexandria, except under great restrictions.[1] This edict, doubtless,
ruined both the canal and the trade in the Red Sea, and may be looked
upon as one of the proximate causes of the increasing power of the
Arabs about the time of the birth of Mohammed. The Arabian caravans
became possessed of the commerce formerly carried on in the northern
part of the Red Sea; and as the wealth and civilization of the Arabs
increased, a demand for a new religion, and a more extended empire,
arose.[2] Had the complete abandonment of the canal not taken place
shortly after the publication of Justinian's edict, it must have been
completed during the universal anarchy which prevailed while Phocas
reigned at Constantinople. Shortly after Heraclius delivered the empire
from Phocas, the Persians invaded Egypt, and kept possession of it for
ten years; nor is it probable that Heraclius could have made any
efforts to restore the canal during the time he ruled Egypt, after
recovering it from the Persians. When the Saracens conquered Egypt,
they found the canal filled with sand.

[1] Edict xiii., Lex de Alexandrinis et Egyptiaciis provinciis.

[2] Transport, in some states of civilization, is cheaper by caravan
than by sea.

The principle of all Mohammedan governments places the supreme power of
the state in the person of the sovereign; and these sovereigns, in the
simplicity or barbarism of their political views, have always considered
the construction of wells, fountains, caravanseries, and mosques, as the
only public works, except palaces, (if palaces can be properly so
called,) worthy of a monarch's attention. Ports and canals they have
always utterly despised, and roads and bridges have been barely
tolerated. It is as difficult to civilize the mind of a true Mohammedan,
as it is to wash the skin of a negro white. But the earlier caliphs were
not moulded into true Mussulmans; they had been witnesses to the making
of their religion; and, when they forsook the rude superstitions of
their forefathers of the desert, they had admitted some gleams of common
sense and sound reason into their minds, along with the sermons of
Mohammed.

And in the early ages of the caliphate, Syria and Egypt were inhabited
by a numerous Christian population of the Nestorian and Jacobite
heresies, firmly attached to the Saracen power, on their hatred to the
orthodox Roman emperors at Constantinople. The importance of the canal
of Suez to the well-being of these useful subjects of the Arab empire,
could not escape the attention of the caliphs. The native population of
Egypt had, with the greatest unanimity, joined the Saracens against the
Romans; and the Caliph Omar would have been led by policy to restore the
canal, in order to enrich these devoted partisans, as he was induced to
burn the library of Alexandria to diminish the moral influence of the
Greeks.

The Arabian historians and geographers contain numerous passages
relating to the re-opening of the canal, and many of these will be found
translated at the end of the _Memoire sur le Canal des Deux Mers_. They
state that Omar ordered the canal of Trajan to be cleared out in its
whole extent. The necessity of securing a greatly increased supply of
grain for the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, whose population had been
suddenly augmented by their becoming the capitals of all Arabia, and the
centres of the Mohammedan power, could not be overlooked. But the mind
of Omar was particularly directed to the subject, in consequence of a
famine which prevailed in Arabia in the eighteenth year of the Hegira,
(A.D. 639,) which was afterwards called the year of the mortality. In
that year, the caliph's attention was also more especially called to the
fertility of Egypt, as Amron, at his pressing demand for provisions,
sent such an immense caravan, that the Arabian writers, with their usual
exaggeration, declare, that the convoy was so numerous as to extend the
whole way from Medina to Cairo; the first camel of the train entering
the Holy City with its load, as the last of the uninterrupted line
quitted Misr. The descriptions of the abundance this supply spread among
the Arabs are indeed less miraculous, though such eloquence is displayed
in painting the gastronomic delights of the hungry Mussulmans, in
devouring the savoury food cooked with the fat of the beasts of burden
which had transported it.[1]

[1] Ebn-A'bdoul-Hokin.

The account of the canal given by the geographer Makrizy, requires to be
transcribed in his own words, from the accurate summary which it
contains of the later history of this great monument of civilization.
"When the Most High," says the writer, "gave Islamism to mankind, and
Amrou-Ben-el-A'ss conquered Egypt by the order of Omar-ben-al-Khatab,
chief of the Faithful, he cleared out the canal in the year of the
mortality. He carried it to the sea of Qolzoum, from which ships sailed
to the Hedjaz, to Yemen, and to India. This canal remained open until
the time when Mohammed-ben-Abdoullah-ben-El-Hossein-ben-Aly-ben-Aby-Thaleb
revolted in the city of the Prophet (Medina) against Abou-dja'far-Abdoullah
ben-Mohammed Al-Manssour, then caliph of Irak. This prince immediately
wrote to his lieutenant in Egypt, ordering him to fill up the canal of
Qolzoum, that it might not serve to transport provisions to Medina. The
order was executed, and all communication was cut off with the sea at
Qolzoum. Since that time, matters have remained in the state we now see
them."[1] As the rebellion of Mohammed Abdoullah against the caliph,
Al Manssour, occurred between the 145th and the 150th years of the
Hegira, (A.D. 762-767,) the canal had remained open for about 125 years
under the Arab government.

[1] See the extracts of Makrizy in the work on Egypt, and in the
_Notice par Langles dans les notices et extraits des Manuscrits de la
Bibliotheque du Roi_, vi. 334.

We have now traced the history of the canal to its close; and we believe
our readers will allow that we have proved, by incontrovertible
evidence, that a continued navigation from the Nile to the Red Sea
existed from the time of Darius (B.C. 500) to the time of Al-Manssour,
(A.D. 765,) with the interruption of a short period preceding the
extinction of the Roman power in the east. It hardly requires any proof
to establish that system of navigation, and a commercial route, which
remained in use for nearly 1300 years, must have been based on the
internal sources of Egypt, and been regarded as absolutely necessary,
under every vicissitude of foreign trade, to the prosperity of the
country. The great object of the canal was to afford a high-road for the
exportation of the produce of Egypt; and its connexion with the Indian
trade was merely a secondary and unimportant consideration. Its
connexion with the existence of the agricultural, Egyptian, or Coptic
population, was more immediate.

At present, the question of restoring the canal is solely connected with
the Indian trade. We own we have very great doubts whether its
re-establishment, if destined only to connect our lines of steam-packets
from India to Suez, and from Southampton to Alexandria, would be found a
profitable speculation. The tedious navigation of the Red Sea, and, we
may almost add, of the Mediterranean, would render the route by the Cape
preferable for sailing vessels; and we have not yet arrived at such
perfection in the construction of steamers, as to contemplate their
becoming the only vessels employed in the Indian trade. It appears to
us, that before any reasonable hope of restoring the canal can be
entertained, or, at least, before it can ever be kept open with profit,
that Egypt must be again in a condition to employ the irrigable land on
the banks of the canal for agricultural purposes. Unless the country be
flourishing, the population increasing, and the canal constantly
employed, it would be half-filled with the sand of the desert every
year. On the other hand, as soon as a demand for more irrigable land is
created by an augmented population, a canal of irrigation would soon be
carried through the valley of Seba Biar; and the surplus produce of the
Delta would again seek for a market on the shores of the Red Sea and in
Arabia. Until these things happen, even should a canal be excavated,
whether from Cairo to Suez, or from Suez to Tineh, during some pecuniary
plethora in the city, we venture to predict that the Suez canal shares,
or Mohammedan bonds, will be as disreputable a security as honest
Jonathan's American repudiated stock, or the Greek bonds of King Otho
not countersigned by Great Britain.

We cannot close this article without alluding to two able pamphlets,
which have been recently published, recommending the formation of a
canal from Suez to Tineh, as that line might be kept always open, from
the elevation of the Red Sea above the Mediterranean.[1] The subject
has been ably treated by the French engineers in the great work on
Egypt, and Monsieur Linant has since examined the question; but the
information we possess on the effect of the currents and winds at
Tineh, is not sufficient to enable any engineer to decide on the works
which would be necessary to enable ships to enter the canal in bad
weather. It is clear that a bar would immediately be formed; and almost
as certain that any break-water but a floating one would soon be joined
to the continent by a neck of sand. If it be possible to form any part
at this point on the Egyptian coast, it could only be done at an
enormous cost; and our information is at present too imperfect to
warrant our entering on the subject. The question requires a more
profound scientific examination than it has yet undergone.

[1] Enquiry into the Means of Establishing a Ship Navigation between
the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, with a Map. By Captain Veitch, R.E.,
F.R.S. Communications with India, China, &c.; Observations on the
Practicability and Utility of Opening a Communication between the Red
Sea and the Mediterranean, by a Ship Canal through the Isthmus of Suez,
with Two Maps. By Arthur Anderson.

One of the ablest scholars who has written on the subject of this canal,
has advanced the opinion, that Nekos, the king of Egypt, who, Herodotus
mentions, undertook the completion of this work, borrowed the idea of
his project from the Greeks. Monsieur Letronne conjectures that he only
imitated the plan, which is attributed to Periander, of having designed
to cut through the isthmus of Corinth. Willing as we are to concede a
great deal to Grecian genius, we are compelled to protest against the
probability of the Egyptians having borrowed any project of
_canalization_ from the Greeks. We own we should entertain very great
doubts whether Periander had ever uttered so much as a random phrase
about cutting through the isthmus of Corinth, were it not that there are
some historical grounds for believing that he was a professed imitator
of Egypt. He had a nephew named Psammetichus, who must have been so
called after the father of Nekos.[1] All projects for making canals in
Greece had a foreign origin, from the time Periander imitated Egyptian
fashions, down to the days of the Bavarian regency, which talked about
making a ship canal from the Piraeus to Athens, and instructed a
commission to draw up a plan of canalization for the Hellenic kingdom,
where every thing necessary is wanting--even to the water. The earlier
projectors who proposed to cut through the isthmus of Corinth, after
Periander, were the Macedonian adventurer Demetrius Poliorcetes, and
the Romans, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Nero, and Herodes Atticas.[2] We
should not be surprised to see this notable project revived, or to hear
that the Greeks were on the point of sinking new shafts at the silver
mines of Laurium. A joint-stock company, either for the one or the
other, would be quite as profitable to the capitalists engaged as the
scheme of making sugar from beet-root at Thermopylae, which has found
some unfortunate shareholders, both at Athens and Paris. Travellers,
scholars, and antiquaries, would undoubtedly take more interest in the
progress of the canal, and of the silver mine, than in the confection
of the sugar.

[1] Aristotolis Politic, lib. v. cap. 10, Sec. 22, p. 193.--Ed. Tauch.

[2] A collection of the classic authorities for the different attempts
at cutting the canal through the isthmus of Corinth, may be interesting
to some of our readers. PERIANDER'S Diogenes Laertius, i. 99--DEMETRIUS
POLIORCETES, Strabo, vol. i. p. 86, ed. Tauch.--JULIUS CAESAR, Dion
Cassius, xliv. 5. Plutarch in Caesar, lviii. Suetonius in Caesar.
xliv.--CALIGULA, Suetonius in Calig. xxi.--NERO, Plinii, N.H. iv. 4.
Lucian, Nero. Philostratus in vit. Apollon. Tyan. iv. 24. Zonaras, i.
570, ed. Paris.--HERODES ATTICUS, Philostratus in vit. Sophist. ii. 26.

There was another canal in Greece which proved a sad stumbling-block to
the Roman satirist Juvenal, whose unlucky accusation of "lying Greece,"
is founded on his own ignorance of a fact recorded by Herodotus and
Thucydides.

--"Creditur olim
Velificatus Athos, et quicquid Graecia mendax
Audet in historia."

The words of Herodotus and Thucydides, would leave no doubt of Xerxes
having made a canal through the isthmus to the north of Mount Athos, in
the mind of any but a Roman.[1] But since there are modern travellers
as ready to distrust the ancients, as a gentleman we once encountered
at Athens was to doubt the moderns, we shall quote better evidence than
any Greek. Our acquaintance of the Athenian inn, who had a very elegant
appearance, appealed to us to confirm the _Graecia mendax_, saying, he
had just returned from Marathon, and his guide had been telling him far
greater lies than he ever heard from an Italian cicerone. "The fellow
had the impudence to say, that his countrymen had defeated 500,000
Persians in the plain he showed me," said the gentleman in green. "Let
alone the number--that fable might be pardoned--but he thought me such
an egregious ass as not to know that the war was with the Turks, and
not with the Persians at all." We bowed in amazement to find our
English friend more ignorant than Juvenal. We shall now transcribe the
observations of Colonel Leake, the most sharp-sighted and learned of
the modern travellers who have visited the isthmus of Mount
Athos:--"The modern name of this neck of land is _provlaka_, evidently
the Romanic form of the word [Greek: proaulax], having reference to the
canal _in front_ of the peninsula of Athos, which crossed the isthmus,
and was excavated by Xerxes. It is a hollow between natural banks,
which are well described by Herodotus as [Greek: kolonoi ou megaloi],
the highest points of them being scarcely 100 feet above the sea. The
lowest part of the hollow is only a few feet higher than that level.
About the middle of the isthmus, where the bottom is highest, are some
traces of the ancient canal; where the ground is lower, it is indicated
only by hollows, now filled with water in consequence of the late
rains. The canal seems to have been not more than sixty feet wide. As
history does not mention that it was ever kept in repair after the time
of Xerxes, the waters from the heights around have naturally filled it
in part with soil in the course of ages. It might, however, without
much labour, be renewed; and there can be no doubt that it would be
useful to the navigation of the Egean, such is the fear entertained by
the Greek boatmen of the strength and uncertain direction of the
currents around Mount Athos."[2]

[1] Herodotus, vii. 21. Thucydides, iv. 109

[2] Leake's Travels in Northern Greece. Vol. iii. p. 143.

THE OLD SCOTTISH CAVALIER.

I.

I'll sing you a new song, that should make your heart beat high,
Bring crimson to your forehead, and the lustre to your eye;--
It is a song of olden time, of days long since gone by,
And of a Baron stout and bold, as e'er wore sword on thigh!
Like a brave old Scottish cavalier, all of the olden time!

II.

He kept his castle in the north, hard by the thundering Spey;
And a thousand vassals dwelt around, all of his kindred they.
And not a man of all that clan had ever ceased to pray
For the Royal race they loved so well, though exiled far away
From the steadfast Scottish cavaliers, all of the olden time.

III.

His father drew the righteous sword for Scotland and her claims,
Among the loyal gentlemen and chiefs of ancient names,
Who swore to fight or fall beneath the standard of King James,
And died at Killiecrankie pass, with the glory of the Graemes,
Like a true old Scottish cavalier, all of the olden time!

IV.

He never own'd the foreign rule, no master he obey'd,
But kept his clan in peace at home, from foray and from raid;
And when they ask'd him for his oath, he touch'd his glittering
blade,
And pointed to his bonnet blue that bore the white cockade,
Like a leal old Scottish cavalier, all of the olden time!

V.

At length the news ran through the land--THE PRINCE had come again!
That night the fiery cross was sped o'er mountain and through glen;
And our old Baron rose in might, like a lion from his den,
And rode away across the hills to Charlie and his men,
With the valiant Scottish cavaliers, all of the olden time!

VI.

He was the first that bent the knee when THE STANDARD waved abroad,
He was the first that charged the foe on Preston's bloody sod;
And ever, in the van of fight, the foremost still he trod,
Until, on bleak Culloden's heath, he gave his soul to God,
Like a good old Scottish cavalier, all of the olden time!

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