Although the first sod of the canal was cut on the 25th April, 1859, it was two years before any real progress was made with the work of excavation. These years were not, however, unemployed. They were chiefly taken up with the work of preliminary preparation, which, on such a vast enterprise, was necessarily considerable. One of the most essential duties required to be undertaken was the construction of a fresh-water canal, for the purpose of supplying the wants of the vast number of labourers employed. Much of this labour was forced, or _corvée_ labour, provided, under engagement, by the Egyptian Government. In 1864, however, after the works had been about four years in progress, the Egyptian Government claimed to withdraw the fellaheen, finding the supply of from 15,000 to 20,000 of the most able-bodied men in the country a serious tax on their resources. The difference between the company and the Government on this score was submitted to the arbitrament of the Emperor Napoleon, who awarded the company an indemnity of 1,520,000_l._ In order to provide the ways and means for the prosecution of the work, and to fulfil concessions made to the company, the Egyptian Government made considerable sacrifices. It had given up its customs dues on the canal company’s imports, its tolls on the fresh-water canal, its postal telegraph services, its fishery rights on the canal and lakes, the hospitals on the isthmus with their appurtenances, the quarries and port of Mex with their plant, the storehouses of Boulac and Damietta, and the right to half the proceeds of any of the lands on the maritime canal, which the company might offer for disposal. These rights the Egyptian Government recovered in 1869 on the payment of 1,200,000_l._, represented by the coupons up to 1894, on the 176,600 shares which it had acquired as an ordinary subscriber. The Egyptians have certainly not reaped the financial advantages from the canal which they ought to have done. They parted to England with their 176,600 shares (less the coupons to 1894) for something under four millions sterling. The value of these shares, deducting the detached coupons, is now close on ten millions. Again, in 1880 they sacrificed their royalties, which amounted to 15 per cent. on the net receipts of the company, to a French syndicate to cover a debt of 700,000_l._ In the seven following years, the syndicate received 1,212,025_l._ from this source, and it has been calculated that if the annual receipts of the canal never exceeded those of that period, the canal company would have paid in 1968 no less than fourteen millions sterling in respect of the advance of 700,000_l._! Evidently the Egyptians did not know the value of the canal when they made this disastrous bargain, although the navigation receipts had increased from 228,750_l._ in 1870 to 1,599,700_l._ in 1880.[147]