"Four hundred years later (about 200 A.D.), according to some writers, a new canal was made, tapping the Nile near Cairo, and connecting with the old one, which was again cleared out and made navigable. Another canal, partly new and partly old, is attributed to the seventh century, and still another to the eleventh century; since that time there has been nothing of the sort till the Maritime Canal Company found it necessary, in 1861, to supply the laborers on their great work with fresh-water. They cleared out the old canal in some places, and dug a new one in others as far as the Bitter Lake; afterward they prolonged it to Suez, which it reached in 1863, and at the same time they laid a line of iron pipes from Ismailia to Port Said, on the Mediterranean. It would have been impossible to make and maintain the Maritime Canal without a supply of fresh-water, and thus the work of the Egyptians of twenty-five hundred years ago became of practical use in our day. "Look on this map," said the Doctor, as he drew one from his pocket and handed it to the youths, "and you will see the various points I have indicated, together with the line of the Maritime Canal, and of the Fresh-Water Canal which supplies this part of Egypt with water." Several minutes were passed in the study of the map. Before it was finished the train started, and in a short time our friends were busily contemplating the strange scene presented from the windows of their carriage. The railway followed very nearly the bank of the Fresh-Water Canal, which varied from twenty to fifty feet in width, and appeared to be five or six feet deep. Beyond it was the Maritime Canal, a narrow channel, where steamers were slowly making their way, the distances between them being regulated by the pilots, so as to give the least possible chance of collision. Considering the number of steamers passing through the Canal, the number of accidents is very small. Frank could not understand how steamers could meet and pass each other, till the Doctor explained that there were "turnouts" every few miles, where a steamer proceeding in one direction could wait till another had gone by, in the same way that railway-trains pass each other by means of "sidings." Then there was plenty of space in Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lake, not only for ships to move, but to anchor in case of any derangement of their machinery. From the information derived from the Doctor, and from the books and papers which he supplied, Frank and Fred made up the following account of the Suez Canal for the benefit of their friends at home: [Illustration: FERDINAND DE LESSEPS.]