The north blast, a sudden wind, is called _Boras_, and hundreds of sailors have practically prayed, with the song, “Cease, rude Boreas.” The north-east biting wind is the _Gregale_, while the south-east, often a violent wind, is the dreaded _Sirocco_, bad either on sea or shore. The last which need be mentioned here, is the stifling south-west wind, the _Siffante_. But now we have reached the Suez Canal. [Illustration: M. LESSEPS.] This gigantic work, so successfully completed by M. Lesseps, for ever solved the _possibility_ of a work which up to that time had been so emphatically declared to be an impossibility. In effect, he _is_ a conqueror. “_Impossible_,” said the first Napoleon, “_n’est pas Français_,” and the motto is a good one for any man or any nation, although the author of the sentence found many things impossible, including that of which we speak. M. de Lesseps has done more for peace than ever the Disturber of Europe did with war. When M. de Lesseps(87) commenced with, not the Canal, but the grand conception thereof, he had pursued twenty-nine years of first-class diplomatic service: it would have been an honourable career for most people. He gave it up from punctilios of honour; lost, at least possibly, the opportunity of great political power. He was required to endorse that which he could not possibly endorse. Lesseps had lost his chance, said many. Let us see. The man who has conquered the usually unconquerable English prejudice would certainly surmount most troubles! He has _only_ carried out the ideas of Sesostris, Alexander, Cæsar, Amrou, the Arabian conqueror, Napoleon the Great, and Mehemet Ali. These are simply matters of history. But history, in this case, has only repeated itself in the failures, not in the successes. Lesseps has made the success; _they_ were the failures! Let us review history, amid which you may possibly find many truths. The truth alone, as far as it may be reached, appears in this work. The Peace Society ought to endorse Lesseps. As it stands, the Peace party—well-intentioned people—ought to raise a statue to the man who has made it almost impossible for England to be involved in war, so far as the great East is concerned, for many a century to come. After all, who is the conqueror—he who kills, or he who saves, thousands? To prove our points, it will not be necessary to recite the full history of the grandest engineering work of this century—a century replete with proud engineering works. Here it can only be given in the barest outline.