3-021-549 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Isthmus of Suez Maritime Canal: Lake Menzaleh, 1869. 'On leaving Port Saïd the canal enters Lake Menzaleh, through which the channel runs for twenty-nine miles. The waters of this lake are shallow and the bottom composed of mud...The lake is full of fish, and consequently the people are all fishermen. There is almost no other occupation. Fish is salted and sent by boat, by camels and asses, to all parts of Egypt. The birds are also of the Ichthyophagi. There is an Isle of Pelicans. Herons and wading birds of all kinds are plentiful, and the fish are so abundant that there is ample food for all. In looking across this vast lake one sees, as far as the horizon, long strips of land; islands with a short herbage on them; here and there an Arab village of reed huts; and among these islands may be seen boats, with their crews busy at work in the only employment of the place. When the Nile is full, the lake rises and all the islands are covered, and even the Pelusian Plain; and the level is higher than that of the Mediterranean, and consequently above the canal'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.