But, even with the requisite capital at command, M. de Lesseps had a most arduous and herculean task to perform. It was necessary, remarks Sir Daniel Lange, previously to entering on a work of such magnitude, to prepare dwellings, storehouses, factories, forges, and a lighthouse; indeed, all the accessories indispensable for putting in motion the huge mechanical appliances intended to be used. All this was done in the newly erected “Town of Port Said.” But before this place could be formed, the marshes had to be raised 10 feet above the sea-level, so as to form an area of sixty-seven acres of solid land; and from this basis piers had to be carried out into the open sea, the western one for a distance of one and three-quarter miles, and the eastern a mile and one-third in length, composed of not less than 250,000 blocks of concrete, weighing about thirty tons each. Between these piers a harbour was formed with a surface of 132 acres, the excavations from it amounting to 4,669,943 cubic mètres.[333] [Sidenote: General details.] But among the many obstacles encountered, none were half so formidable as the formation of the channel through Lake Menzaleh, which extended 21 miles from Port Said to Kantara. The sands and other insurmountable obstacles which had been prophesied were as nothing to this work, arising from the fact that the mud and slush had actually to be thrown up by the hands alone (just as children in their amusements make mud-heaps) of the thousands of natives employed to form a dyke;[334] indeed, had it not been for the powerful Egyptian sun, which dried up the mud so exposed in a few hours, the task would have been impracticable, as ordinary mechanical appliances must have failed to overcome such an obstacle. When something like an opening had been made through many miles of “black slush,” and clear water began to flow in, rafts were constructed, and on these the men slept under tents made of mats. In this work, about fifteen thousand fishermen from the neighbourhood were employed, a class of men who, from time immemorial, had been accustomed, in their ordinary avocations, to spend a large portion of their time half immersed in the water. When a passage of sufficient dimensions had been scooped out with their hands, dredging-machines were introduced. By degrees this trench was widened until it reached the dimensions of 330 feet wide, and 26 feet deep; the sides, from the rapid drying of the mud, soon becoming almost as solid as walls of masonry and quite as durable.