Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-11
THE GRAND CANAL, CHINA.
One Thousand Miles Long

President. The actual digging was started
| during the presidency of Buchanan, and
| the canal was in full swing and almost
| paying proposition on the accession or
President Grant. 1t took about eleven
years to do the work of cutting out the
sand and Joining the lakes, so that the
waters flowed uninterruptedly from ocean
to ocean.
A Trip Through the Canal
But let US take ship and pass through
the canal from Suez to the Atlantic. The
voyage requires about eighteen hours, but
the canal is thoroughly lighted by electricity
and the night will be turned into day. We
| steam along slowly. The traffic is heavy,
and the canal officials regulate the speed.
| The ditch is over three hundred feet wide
at the top and one hundred and fifty feet
wide at the bottom, and the water within
is as quiet as mill pond Notice how
green it is and how the green shines out in
| contrast with the bare yellow sands which
| line it. AS we stand on the ship and look
| to the right and left we are travelling
through sands. On each side of us far
as we can see there is nothing but desert,
| with now and then little town or village
| on the banks of the canal
| There are but few signs Of life. Here
caravan trots along over the yellow waste,
! the long ungainly camels with their black
gowned riders bobbing up and down against
the clear sky of the horizon. Now a flock of
! long-necked cranes springs from the water
| into the air, and now away across the sand,
| at the side of the ship, we see a new ship
! and new waters which look real the
| green waters through which we are NOV
| Ing. That is the mirage common to the
| Libyan desert. 1t fades as we come nearer,
| and vanishes like a castle of the air.
Gong onward we now and then have to
stop in basins, cut for the purpose, to allow
OtEer vessels to pass. We notice that most
| OF the ships fly the union jack. About
| three-fourths of all the tonnage which
passes through belongs to Great Britain,
| and next come the ships of the French,
| Dutch and Germans There but few
American vessels. solitary gunbOat on
| its way to Manila is the only one see
| during the voyage. At last we reach Is
| MALTA, the town midway of the canal,
| where De Lesseps lived while it was build
| ing, and then go on to Port Said, the
Mediterranean, where the waters of the At
| lantic have flowed in to start through this
| great ditch on their way to the Red sea
| and Indian ocean.
How the Suez Canal Paid.
| And does the canal pay?
If you will come with me to the offices
here at Port Said 1 can show you that it is
| one of the best investments ever made by a
| nation. The canal in the beginning belong
ed to the French and the Egyptians. 1t is
still managed by the French, but the Brit
| ish practically control it, as they do also
the land of Egypt through which it goes
| The cost of the canal, including its enlarge
ment, mas, all tOlQ, Deen a llItle more IMAM
| $120 100000 The receipts within one term
of ten years were more than S163 100000,
and the dividends at its close were between
40 and 80 per cent There are altogether
400 600 shares. Great Britain paid some
thing like $200O00 G0 for almost half of
| them to the Khedive of Egypt. She made
| the purchase through the Rothschilds in
1875, and the Rothschilds received big
commission on the deal. Since then Great
Britain has been receiving dividends right
along, and her shares are now worth about
six times what she paid for them.
1t was one of the best investments John
Bull ever made. AS it is now the canal re-
ceipts amount to $20OOO,000 and upward a
year. The rate charged is So per ton, which
would have to pay $4,000 to go through
the canal. This seems much, but when
one considers that the same ship would
have to travel around the Cape of Good
Hope to get from Asia to Europe one can
see that it is cheap enough after all. A
charge is also made for every passenger
who rides through the canal, and as the
passengers sometimes number 10000 a year
this item is valuable.
At Corinth.
We have crossed the Mediterranean, and
are standing on the Isthmus of Corinth At
our back is continental Greece, with Athens
away off at the left. In front of us lies the
Peloponnesus, which, until about 1890, was
n PENINSULA Then the canal which lies at
our feet was cut through and that part OF
old Greece became an island. The canal is
less than four miles In length, but II you
look ct the map you will see how 1t short
ems the distance between Athens and the
Adriatic and the western Mediterranean.
1t brings Athens 176 miles nearer Venice