The traveller may now be supposed to have arrived at Lake Timsah, where, no doubt, in the days of the Pharaohs, a lake existed. When taken in hand by M. Lesseps, it was a barren, sandy hollow, containing a few shallow pools, through which a man could easily wade, but now it is filled with the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a pretty, inland, salt water lake, about three miles in width. On the northern shore stands the town, or, rather, small settlement of Ismaïlia, which is, in fact, the “half way house” where most of the officials of the Suez Canal Company resided, as they could get to either end of the canal with greater facility, or to Cairo by the railroad, which comes to this point, and continues, with the canal, to Suez. [Illustration: FIG. 131.—_Railway Station at Ismaïlia._ ] When the canal was opened, in November, 1869, Ismaïlia was the scene of the most brilliant part of the opening ceremony, in which the French Empress Eugénie, the Empress of Austria, the Crown Prince of Prussia, and other distinguished personages took share. The Khedive built himself a summer palace, and M. Lesseps erected a villa, and the town was most artistically laid out, with every prospect of becoming a flourishing place. But the drainage had been so entirely overlooked, that it is said the sewage found its only outlet in the fresh water canal; and the consequence was fever broke out and so infected the town, that it was soon almost quite deserted. In 1882, Ismaïlia was once more the scene of bustle and activity, for here was the base of Sir Garnet Wolseley’s operations in his brilliant campaign against Arabi. The British Navy entered the canal, and took possession of Ismaïlia, where the army and the military stores were rapidly concentrated. From this place, Sir Garnet advanced along the route of the railway and the Sweet Water Canal, and, after storming the lines of Tel-el-Kebir, occupied Cairo, without further resistance, after a campaign of only three weeks’ duration.