Union and American. [volume] (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1875-1877, 1876-05-18
FERDINAND DE LHssEPs.
BY JAMES PARTON,

w. 80 ~ Y WV
American people to the work OF
penetrating the IstInnus OF Darirn.
The Suez Canal, connecting me
Mediterranean with the Red Sea,
is one hundred miles long. a hun
dred yards wide, and twenty-siX
feet deep; it required fourteen
years, and cost twelve millions OF
pounds sterling. it is cut mostly
through very wet swamp and very
light sand. and the chief Difficult
ty was to keep it from caving and
filling in. The Darien canal, on
the contrary, if the lsthmus is cut
ut its narrowest part will he about
thirty two miles long, and will re-
'quire a ship-tunuel q hundred and
twenty five feet high and seven
miles long through solid rock.
Before the war, the most reas0na-
BILE estimate of the cost of such Il
canal was eighty millions Of dol
lars. If the work were done in the
best manner, with the men under
military discipline, and the best
sanitary measures adopted, it
could perhaps now be done for a
hundred millions-one month
wal expenditure.
But it is ofthe Suez Canal and
It's builder that | am to speak. AS
I look upon the portrait Of M. Les
.seps, | cannot help observing some
resemblance between him and our
Governor Morris, who perhaps did
more to inspire the Erie Canal
than any other person; and Les
seps, too, has had to distinct ca
'reers, the first in diplomacy, and
the second in engineering. | see
the name and person of Lesseps
figuring in Italian caripatures of
the year 1S49, when he represen-
ted France in a diplomatic mis-
sion near Rome; and to-day, after
an interval of twenty-seven years,
we read paragraphs in the news
papers about him. One Of these
describes him as seventy years old,
but still young, vigorous, and full
of grand ideas. The paragraph
continues thus.
with black eyebrows %mustache,
white beard, he is a most noticeable
man. He brings his children up
in the most Spartan way. They
go about barefooted, and although
madame only half likes thus, he is
able to boastthat their young ones,
of whom they have a small regi
mont, are never ILL.,"
People are apt to bring up their
children as they were brought up
themselves, it Is probable that Les.
;seps owes his present vigorous old
age to his having been reared in
some such Spartan fashion as this.
He was horn at Versailles in 1905,
and, soon after coming of age, was
appointed junior consul at Tunls,
where he lived during the conquest
of Algiers by the French. From
one consular post to another he
proceeded, until, in 1881, we find
him inEgypt, a young man oftwen-
ty.six, charged with the office,
temporarily, of French eousuIgen-
cral. Even at that early day he
considered the project of the Suez,
canal. He did not originate the
scheme which is, indeed, as Oil as
Egyptian civilization. No %intelli-
gent person can ever have been IA
milliar with the geography of that
part of the world without thinking
of a Suez canal. His attention, it
was called to it by the religious
enthusiast, Father EnfantIn, who
was then in Egypt, and who had al,
so Interested the Pacha, Mehemct
ALI, in the project. -.
But the plague broke cut in Al
rxlmdria. and desolated the city
NJ. l. ssrps SO distinguished him
self by his Humanity and zeal in
alleviat ng the horrors of the time,
that King Louis Philippe gave him
the cross of the Legion OF honor,
and promoted him to the import
ant consulate Of Rotterdam. In
1912 he was consul at Barcelona, IN
6l,a:a .uknn L. uunr nrlnd by