The defending of the canal, a waterless tract, void of roads in its immediate vicinity, is no easy matter and a subject of much controversy, the manner of its defence depending, like that of most other localities, on the troops available and the strength of the enemy threat. The difficulties have been overcome by a herculean effort. Atkins bathes happily in its water, and watches the ships of allies and of neutrals—those lesser breeds who wait—pass us safely. To most of the English the canal has seemed a desert track dotted with lonely _gares_, akin in their solitude to a Red Sea lighthouse. A further acquaintance with them has dispelled many imaginings. The _gares_, the friendly _chefs de gare_, and their brimming quivers have assumed a different aspect from their ancient one of milestones on the road to India. British patrols thread the ancient course of the Nile now dry, the Pelusiac and Tanaitic channels that found the sea east of the canal and explain the delta-like lagoons that still remain. The ruins of Pelusium and the ancient channel explain how Cleopatra, defeated on the high seas, escaped by water inland to Damietta, and how the Holy Family found the road to Egypt far easier than it is now. Across Lake Menzalah from Port Said lie the ruins of Tanais, the capital of the Pharaohs in the time of Moses. El Qantara, a British post, closes the road from Palestine to Egypt that has run since time was, and that has seen in our own time the legions of Napoleon march by the bridge over the arm of the marsh for Syria. ‘_Partant pour la Syrie_’ with a vengeance, many, poor souls, to die miserably. And no doubt over the El Qantara rode also the _savants_ in their high hats and veils, their long _directoire_ coats and their striped pantaloons—like any member of the various royal societies of to-day, but with the chill off—while the escorting _chasseurs_ chaffed them and their umbrellas. So to-day Port Said and Suez and Ismailia and Cairo are full of the soldiery, and a wide camp is spread under the Pyramid of Ghizr, and young officers walk along the groyne at Port Said, asking ‘what is the history of that funny old green statue’ which stands a wonder of the world, like the _Phare_ in ancient Alexandria. Shades of Ferdinand de Lesseps and Rawdon Chesney! What, indeed, is the history of that ‘funny old green statue,’ and the ‘spine of the British Empire’ as the Hun has immortalised it? It is a phrase for which we may thank William of Hohenzollern.