Every intelligent child on looking at the map would ask why the natural route to India was not by the Isthmus of Suez, and why a canal was not made. His schoolmaster answered, in days gone by, that there was a difference in the levels of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. That question has been answered successfully, and the difference has not ruined the Canal. Others said that it was impossible to dig a canal through the desert. It has been done! Lord Palmerston, the most serious opponent in England that Lesseps had,(88) thought that France, our best ally to-day, would have too much influence in Egypt. Events, thanks to Lord Beaconsfield’s astute policy, by purchasing the Khedive’s interest, have given England the largest share among the shareholders of all nations. It would not be interesting to follow all the troubles that Lesseps successfully combated. The idea had more than once occurred to him, when in 1852 he applied to Constantinople. The answer was that it in no way concerned the Porte. Lesseps returned to his farm at Berry, and not unlikely constructed miniature Suez Canals for irrigation, thought of camels while he improved the breed of cattle, and built houses, but not on the sand of the desert. Indeed, it was while on the roof of one of his houses, then in course of construction, that the news came to him of the then Pacha of Egypt’s death (Mehemet Ali). They had once been on familiar terms. Mehemet Ali was a terribly severe man, and seeing that his son Saïd Pacha, a son he loved, was growing fat, he had sent him to climb the masts of ships for two hours a day, to row, and walk round the walls of the city. Poor little fat boy! he used to steal round to Lesseps’ rooms, and surreptitiously obtain meals from the servants. Those surreptitious dinners did not greatly hurt the interests of the Canal, as we shall see. Mehemet Ali had been a moderate tyrant—to speak advisedly. His son-in-law, Defderdar, known popularly as the “Scourge of God,” was his acting vicegerent. The brute once had his groom shod like a horse for having badly shod his charger. A woman of the country one day came before him, complaining of a soldier who had bought milk of her, and had refused to pay for it. “Art thou sure of it?” asked the tyrant. “Take care! they shall tear open thy stomach if no milk is found in that of the soldier.” They opened the stomach of the soldier. Milk was found in it. The poor woman was saved. But, although his successor was not everything that could be wished, he had a good heart, and was not “the terrible Turk.”