3-021-553 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Isthmus of Suez Maritime Canal: the cutting near Chalouf, [Egypt], 1869. 'The Chalouf cutting, which is situated near the south-eastern extremity of the Bitter Lakes, and within twelve miles of Suez, is the subject of our Artist's Sketch. The ground here is hard and stony, with a stratum of conglomerate rock at no great depth, so that it was necessary to make the excavation by manual labour alone, without introducing water and dredges...Thousands of men are here employed - Dalmatians, Greeks, Croats, negroes from Nubia, and Egyptian Fellahs, all superintended by French officers. These gangs of men are regularly organised and paid according to the cubic feet of earth they dig out, some earning five or six and others only two or three francs a day. The works along this section are being pushed on with great rapidity, steam-traction on railways, asses, mules, men, and camels, all contributing towards their completion'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.