The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-07-03
The suez Cnnai-Ismnil Pncba aud the
Press-The New Golden Age.

In September next ii is expected the opening
Of the Suez ship canal, connecting the Red
Sea and the Indian Ocean with the Mediterre-
mean and the Atlantic, will be celebrated with
| a royal gathering and regal splendors never
| surpassed, nay, never approached in the
grandest celebrations of ancient or modern
times. All the accessible potentates and Pow
ers of Europe, Asia, Africa, and doubtless of
| of America, too. are to be represented on the
| great occasion. We presume, too, that many
| distinguished ladies from various nations
| will be present, inasmuch as the Empress
| Eugene, in the name of France and this great
Franco Egyptian work, is to assist in the cere-
monies. Through her influence some one or
| more of the princes and princesses Of the
| royal family of England will, in all probability,
| be among the constellation of notabities.
Last, though not least, it is given out that the
| enlightened Egyptian Viceroy, Ismail Pacha,
| has resolved to set apart million of francs
in behalf of the representatives of the news
paper press that cards are to be sent out over
Europe alone to two hundred different journals
inviting delegate from each to the grand
round of JGtes and excursions, including a
steamboat trip up the Nile to the cataracts;
and that, in short, the liberal and progressive
Viceroy intends that this celebration of the
opening of the Suez Canal, like the great
work itself, shall be one OF the wonders of the
modern world
We live in an age of wonders The printing
press, the steam engine and the electric tele-
graph, in their amazing transformations in
human affairs, moral and material, are eclips-
ing the miraculous powers of the magic lamp
of Aladdin. Through the public press, steam
and the telegraph all the nations Of the earth
and the isles of the sea are coming into imme-
date rapport. Hence Austria, which but yes
terday was doing and dreaming among the
effete institutions of the Middle Ages, stands
to-day in the front rank of modera progress,
and distant China, which but yesterday was
closed on all sides as by Chinese wall
against ''outside barbarians, aud especially
''the red-headed and sandy-hared barbarians
of the West" is throwing wide open her gates
to the world-subduing Caucasian. Her civil
cation, which was gray when Europe was but
a wilderness of sayages, yields to the pressure
of the newspaper press, steam and the tele-
graph. And now, it appears, the Yiceroy of
| Egypt, from his contact with these potential
| agents of modern progress, is so far advanced
| as 10 eclipse even the observing and sagacious
Bismarck in his recognition of the pervading
| influences of modern journalism. The Viceroy
Iaar IF Il from,
the late Abyssinian expedition.
| Such IRE among the marvels Of the age we
| live in. 1t is the new golden age. 1t is re-
| markable, too, that as the way was opened for
! the golden age Of Rome by the decisive vic
| tories of Octavius in Egypt so now in one of
| the greatest events towards the contamination
of the new golden age Egypt is to be the scene.
| The idea OF ship canal across the desert 18TH
mus of Suez, between sixty and seventy miles,
! is older than the Pyramids but like the mys-
terry of the foundations and the sources of the
| mighty Nile, it has passed down to our
nineteenth century for its pF3 ctical solu-
| ton. An English explorer, Sir Samuel
Baker, having completely solved the
Nile sources, its unfaling stream and
| its annual overflow, has been commissioned
by the Egyptian Pacha, on a large and liberal
scale, to head an expedition to the great Nile
lakes of the equator, in view Of making the
length Of Egypt the length Of the river, which
| flows through some thirty five degrees Of ati-
| tude. On the other hand, some French en-
| gineers, having shown the feasibility of the
| Suez Canal, the Pacha engages the French to
excavate it, and draws upon the wild Arabs
! for their workmen, thus bringing the influence,
| the foremost minds and the best appliances of
| the two greatest European Powers into his
service with the children of the desert. The
| Sultan Of Turkey, then, who owes the preser-
walton Of his empire to England and France,
has reason 10 be proud Of his progressive and
sagacious Egyptian viceroy
| We have had our celebration of the orening
| of the Pacific Railroad, which, in some rnea-
| sure, taps the industrious, swarming millions
and exhaustless trade Of Eastern Asia; bat
this road, after all, is rather local than
cosmopolitan work. The Portuguese dis
| covery Of the sbipway TO the Indies around
the southern end of Africa in the fifteenth CEN
| fury was hailed by the Western Powers of
| Europe as the most important discovery of
many centuries. II was in searching for
western passage to the Indies that Columbus
! stumbled upon America, and hence the name
of the Indies given to the islands of the Gulf
! Of Mexico. The trade Of her East Indies Is
to-day to England what Cuba has been to
! Spain, great source of her supplies. This
Suez Canal, 10 dispensing with The circuit of
Africa, brings this boundless traffic of the In
| dies, including all the islands Of the Indian
Ocean, by way Of Egypt into and through the
| Mediterranean, and thus promises to revive
something Of the old commercial prosperity Of
L I'LL liz. Glntno hn.d ~