We move slowly, about five miles an hour, with our electric searchlight throwing its beam ahead if it is night. Sometimes 39 we meet a steamer coming north, and must moor in one of the passing stations, as the Canal is too narrow, except at these points, for large vessels to pass one another. All round us is the desert, though here and there we may see a small Arab village or perhaps a string of slow-moving camels, where the caravan route of the desert touches the line of the Canal. Towards the southern end of the waterway we pass through the 40 Bitter Lakes. At some very remote age there must have been a natural channel between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; of this the lakes are fragments, partly dried up, and the builders of the Canal have only repaired the original work of Nature. On Lake Timsah, halfway across, stands the town of Ismailiya. Here is the real connexion with Egypt, by the railway from Cairo and the sweet water canal from the Nile. The sweet water canal represents in part the work of various 41 rulers of Egypt from the earliest recorded times. The plan of connecting the two seas directly is modern; it was natural that the earlier route should be by way of the great river of Egypt and the inhabited part of the country. The restoration and extension of this ancient waterway was essential to the scheme for constructing the Suez Canal. A good supply of water was vitally necessary for the vast army of native labourers engaged in the work; the Canal could also be used for small traffic, and for reclaiming the neighbouring desert by irrigation. So here we have a link with the real Egypt, the waters of the Nile, and the great dam at Assuan, far away up the river, which holds up 42 the water and controls the whole system. At both ends of this long chain of water are vast engineering works of the most modern type, designed by Europeans; between are the Pyramids, the 43 greatest triumphs of the engineers and builders of the past, and the representatives of Egypt with all its ancient civilization. It is a strange contrast of the very old with the very new which meets us in this corner of Africa: the present conditions might have been very different if the great route to India and the East had passed elsewhere.