It has been suggested, with some show of reason, that it would be to the advantage of the commerce of the world that the maritime Powers should make arrangements to acquire the Suez Canal, and throw it open, free of any charge or impost whatsoever, to the navigation of all nations, in the same way that the Scheldt and the Sound have been. The canal has hitherto been employed almost entirely for the transport of passengers, mails, and such traffic as will bear a high rate of freight, the charge of 7_s._ to 10_s._ per ton being prohibitory in respect to much of the commerce that passes from the East to the West. The proposal is one that is entitled to every consideration. There is, however, a high probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that the proprietors would demand a very large sum in excess of their original expenditure. The canal has cost from first to last, including financing, some 20,000,000_l._ At their recent prices, the canal shares may be considered as worth about four times that amount. If the property were to be purchased on such a basis, it would require an expenditure of at least 80,000,000_l._, which sum, although by no means impossible, is yet little likely to be realised for such a purpose. If the canal had been taken over in 1880 it could have been purchased for one-half the sum that would now be required to buy it.[162] At the same time that the Suez canal route was being advocated with all his wonted energy and enthusiasm by M. de Lesseps, other two routes to India were being seriously discussed. As one at least of these is still on the carpet we may fitly say something of it here. Up to the sixteenth century the best known and the most frequented route to India was that by the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris. These two great rivers of Mesopotamia are among the most celebrated in the world’s history. The Euphrates has its source in the northern highlands of Armenia; the Tigris in the southern slopes of the same mountainous region, being fed by many rivers that traverse the boundary line between Persia and Turkey. Almost at the dawn of recorded history, we find that the Assyrians and the Babylonians connected these two rivers by a series of canals. Two of these, constructed parallel to the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, were large enough to be navigated, but the system was constructed mainly with a view to irrigating the surrounding plains, which, for nearly six months, were liable to be burnt up by the scorching sun. As the Arabs and Turcomans gained greater ascendancy in this region, the arts of husbandry were less practised, and the canals and water-courses were allowed to fall into desuetude and decay. Their embankments still, however, remain to attest the remarkable skill, labour, and industry with which, at this early date, the fertility of the soil was stimulated and increased, until the extraordinary productiveness of Assyria and Babylonia became a favourite theme of Herodotus and other historians.