At the barrier of Chalouf, seventy-four miles from Port Saïd (thirteen miles from the Suez roadstead), the banks rise fifty feet above the water level with a dry slope of 45°, at the foot of which a level terrace for a tow-path is constructed, about sixty feet wide, on either side. This terrace lies above the level of the highest tide of the Red Sea. The slope for the tidal prism is five to one, and below this there are two slopes of equal length, respectively three to one and two to one, stretching down to the bed, which lies over five fathoms below the mean level of the sea. The material met with in this barrier is principally clay and solid gypsum. Under the gypsum, at the depth of twenty feet below the sea-level, is a bed of freestone or grit, in which are found remains of marine animals, some of them extinct species. One of the laborers gave me a megalodon from this stratum. The excavation has been made by hand and the material carried up inclined planes by steam-power and deposited in cavaliers stretching back from the canal into the desert.

Leaving the barrier of Chalouf, the canal runs through a plain five feet above the mean level of the sea. For twelve feet above the bed of the canal the bottom is of hard shell rock with light coral intermixed, which at some points required blasting; above this is red shingle and the top sand; which sand, here as elsewhere, takes a slope of repose, five to one. The form of section referred to above for the Chalouf barrier is maintained. The height of the banks in the plain of Suez nowhere exceeds twenty feet. Through this plain and parallel to the line of the present Ship Canal ran the ancient canal of the Pharaohs. This canal was cleaned out for the last time by Amrou, who named it after his master, "Canal of the Commander of the Faithful." "It remained in this state one hundred and fifty years, until the reign of the Abbasside Caliph Abou-Jafar-el-Manzor, who in the year 159 of the Hegira (A. D. 781) ordered it to be closed at its outlet in the Sea of Kolsom" (Red Sea).* This canal, which has been dry eleven centuries, is still at several points in a remarkable state of preservation. As I rode along its bed and climbed its banks, I could scarcely

* From Schems-Eddin, cited by Linant and Mongel in their report upon the original project of the present Ship Canal, 1855. Amrou actually proposed a direct canal from sea to sea.

believe that a single generation had passed since it was a pathway of commerce. In this portion of the desert, which is not traversed by dunes and is rarely washed by rains, all is changeless; your footprints remain in the soil till other footsteps obliterate them. One of my engineering friends picked up from the ground some pieces of silver and copper money which had not been current among men for fifteen centuries.

After traversing the shallow lagoons for a distance of some six miles, the Maritime Canal enters the magnificent roadstead of Suez under the shelter of a handsomely paved rip-rap jetty. In approaching the sea, the section of the water-way enlarges, so that at its opening upon the roadstead the width at bed is 311 and the depth 28 feet.

The Suez roadstead furnishes some land-locked anchorage berths, although the shelter to the southeast is distant and low. The holding-ground is perfect, — a light-brown clay. The Egyptian government has constructed dry-docks at the head of the roads after the most approved plans, and every facility for repairing and refitting ships will be found there and in the neighborhood. In spite of the absence of vegetation the scenery about the roadstead of Suez is very beautiful and grand. The sea has the rich blue of the bay of Naples, and the purple crags of Ghebel Attaka rise nearly three thousand feet upon the African shore.

Our information relative to the Red Sea generally is exceedingly meagre. The chart in use is from the survey of the East India Company, and is pretty good. From the reports of shipmasters, it would appear that northerly winds prevail to such an extent that sailing-vessels would find it difficult to work their way up to Suez. And yet we know that, previous to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, the Venetians and Turks had a considerable fleet of trading-vessels in this sea, and that the Portuguese sent a fleet in 1538 to destroy these vessels. I have no doubt that when the shores of this sea shall be properly lighted, its dangers marked by buoys and light-ships, and a better chart published, sailing-vessels will find their way up by taking advantage of occasional slants of wind, and of the current which, upon the lull of the north wind, sets up steadily, although feebly.

The channel is nearly everywhere over fifty miles wide, so that there is ample room for beating. The tidal currents do not seem to be either steady or strong, although there is a rise and fall of seven feet at Bab-el-Mandeb, and of five feet at Suez. In the central portion of this sea there appears to be as little tide as in the Mediterranean. The sky is clear nearly all the time, so that the latitude can be determined perhaps every day. The saving in distance between our ports and the East Indies by this new route is 3,200 miles at least, and over 4,000 miles upon the usual sailing-courses. The saving in time for outward-bound vessels will be in the same proportion; but for homeward-bound sailing-ships the route through the Suez Canal will consume more time than that round the Cape.

The Suez Ship Canal is the only one yet constructed without locks or gates, and it is the largest and deepest artificial waterway of any considerable extent that has ever been made. There are only three other long canals that claim to float first-class ships, viz., the Caledonian, the Great North Holland, and the new Amsterdam Canal.* The first of these is 521 miles in length, with a bed 50 feet wide at the depth of 20 feet (maximum). The second is 42 miles in length, with a bed 31 feet wide at the depth of 201⁄2 feet (maximum); and the third is 13 miles long, with a bed 881 feet wide at the depth of 23 feet. The surface width of the Amsterdam Canal is only 197 feet, so that its sectional area falls below that of the Suez Channel.

I have looked in vain through the entire history of this French enterprise in Egypt, to discover the least trace of earnest effort or sincere co-operation on the part of the Egyptian or Turkish government. I believe that the Viceroys of Egypt, from Mahomet Ali down to the present weak prince, have been coaxed into acquiescence by the master minds that conceived and executed this brilliant work, and I am convinced that this costly avenue, and the commerce employing it, will never be secure from interruption till the territory is neutralized or otherwise wrested from Mohammedan misrule.

HENRY MITCHELL.

The Vorn Canal in South Holland is but six miles in length, and the Saint Louis Canal, in the south of France, only three. Both of these are ship canals.

ART. VI.-1. A Tale of Paraguay. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL. D.

2. The Reign of Dr. Joseph Gaspard Roderick de Francia in Paraguay. By MESSRS. RENGGER and LONGCHAMPS. London. 1827. 8vo. pp. 208.

3. Paraguay, and the Alliance against the Tyrant Francisco Solano Lopez. Pamphlet. 12mo. pp. 40. New York. 1869.

4. Correspondencia Diplomatica entre el Gobierno del Paraguay y la Legacion de los Estados Unidos de America, etc., etc. Pamphlet. 4to. pp. 17. Buenos Ayres.

5. Executive Documents, United States Senate. Doc. No. 5, Parts 1, 2, 3. Message of the President, communicating Information in Relation to Recent Transactions in the Region of the La Plata. pp. 118, 150, and 38.

Executive Documents, United States House of Representatives, No. 79. Letter from the Secretary of the Navy, in Answer to a Resolution of the House, transmilting Correspondence relative to the Paraguay Difficulties. pp. 95.

Miscellaneous Documents, United States House of Rep resentatives, No. 8, Pt. 2. Memorial of Porter C. Bliss and George F. Masterman. pp. 13.

6. Revue des deux Mondes; 1865, 1866, 1867.

7. Papeles del Tirano del Paraguay, tomados por los Aliados en el Asalto de 27 de Diciembre de 1868. Buenos Ayres. 1869. Pamphlet. 8vo. pp. 140.

WE are told that in the reign of Augustus the temple of Janus was shut, for the whole world was at peace. That universal harmony has not been of frequent recurrence. Even when the earth in general is free from strife, there seldom fails to be some section of it which is still "the seat of war."

Such, at the present time, is the so-called Republic of Paraguay. Its ruler, the third in a strange succession of despots, charged with many grievous crimes, but sustained by the simple and brave people whom he governs, has defied for years the power of three nations, two of them occupying territories far more extensive and populous than his own. The interest

of the struggle is deepened for us by questions that have arisen, affecting the character and conduct of some of our diplomatic and naval officers, and our national rights and honor. Still, the scene of strife is so distant, and the information possessed with regard to it so imperfect, that few probably have any definite conception of the nature of the quarrel, or of the manner in which our country or its representatives became connected with it.

When, in 1527, Sebastian Cabot, then in the service of Spain, sailed up the Parana and the Paraguay, he found the Indians on their banks decorated with ornaments of silver; and, ignorant that the metal had been brought across the continent from Upper Peru, he gave to the mighty stream, of which these were branches, the name of River of Silver (Rio de la Plata). Interested in his accounts, the Spaniards undertook another expedition. Two thousand in number, we are told, they landed where the city of Buenos Ayres now stands; thence ascending the Parana, they repeated constantly to the Indians, Plata, Plata! and, by the more intelligible language of signs, showed of what deity they sought the shrine. That shrine they did not find; but they established on the banks of the Paraguay a fort, which became the beginning of the city of Assumption, the day on which the fort was begun being the 15th of August, the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

Years passed; wars took place between the settlers and the natives, in which the strength of the Indian tribes was completely broken, and a part of them reduced to slavery. Then, among conquerors and destroyers, appeared men whose mission was to save. The Jesuits, that marvellous organization, powerful alike for evil and for good, built for themselves in the wilds of Paraguay a monument of self-sacrificing usefulness, of humble and persevering labor. Combining the zeal of the devotee with the discipline of the soldier, the culture of the scholar with the varied resources of the man of the world, they found in the forests of Central South America a field of noble exertion, and of pure and splendid triumphs. The Indians of both continents have ever been more readily impressed by the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church than by the simple ser