Asiatic Breezes; Or, Students on The Wing

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE CONFERENCE ON THE SUEZ CANAL

  The Grand Basin Ismail, at Port Said, is only an extension in breadth ofthe canal, and the Guardian-Mother had only to proceed on her course bythe narrow water-way through the desert. The Maud followed her closely,having nothing to fear on account of the depth of the water; and eventhe ship had plenty under her keel. But it is said that, by what appearsto be a curious reversal of the ordinary rule, the very large steamersare in less danger of running aground than those of smaller dimensions.

  When the commander stated this canal axiom to the passengers assembledbefore the starting on the promenade, Uncle Moses objected strenuouslyto its truth, and Dr. Hawkes warmly supported him. The statement did notlook reasonable to them.

  "Is it claimed that a vessel drawing twenty-five feet of water is inless peril than one needing only eighteen feet of water to float her?"asked the lawyer.

  "The facts seem to prove this; but you will say that it is so much theworse for the facts," replied the captain, laughing at the earnestnessof the non-nautical gentlemen; and even the ladies understood thematter well enough to be interested in the dispute.

  "The affirmative side of the question must prove its position,"suggested the doctor.

  "Which the affirmative will be very happy to do," replied the commandervery cheerfully. "If the bottom of the canal were a dead level, pavedlike Broadway, and the depth of the canal were just twenty-six feet inevery place, with a perpendicular wall on each side, your theory wouldbe entirely correct, and the affirmative would have nothing more to say.But the bottom is not paved, and there are no walls at the sides tosecure a uniform depth."

  "Then the canal is not twenty-six feet deep, as the affirmative has laiddown the law," added Uncle Moses.

  "That looks like a lawyer's quibble," replied the captain with a heartylaugh. "You have opened the road for the retreat of the negative."

  "The facts set forth by the speakers in our conference fail to befacts," persisted the legal gentleman.

  "The fact was given as a general truth that the depth of the canal istwenty-six feet; but I think that no person as reasonable as SquireScarburn of Von Blonk Park would insist that it should be absolutely offully that depth in every part in order to comply with the general truthof the statement. The courts don't rule in that way. I read lately of alife insurance company which refused to pay a policy on the plea thatthe holder had been a drunkard; but the court ruled that the use ofintoxicating liquors, or even an occasional over-indulgence, did notconstitute a drunkard."

  "A wise ruling," added the squire.

  "We call a person a good man; but even the affirmative does not insistthat he shall be absolutely without sin, stain, or fault in order toentitle him to this designation."

  "There would not be a single good man in that case," laughed the doctor."We admit the general truth that the canal is twenty-six feet deep."

  "The canal has been dug out of loose sand for the most part, and itwould have been impossible to make it of uniform depth. Some of thelargest steamers in the world pass through the canal on their way toIndia, China, and Australia. The Orient Line has the Ophir, a twin-screwship, about five hundred feet long, and others nearly as large.

  "This big ditch across the isthmus has an average width of three hundredfeet, or two hundred less than the length of the Ophir. She could not,therefore, get across the channel. There is a current in this water, andfierce winds sometimes blow across it, and both of these affect theinertia of the vessels. A comparatively small steamer like theGuardian-Mother can be twisted about by these causes, and her bow or herstern may catch on the sloping sides."

  "You have made out your case, Captain Ringgold; and the moral is thatgeneral truths are not invariably true," said Uncle Mosesgood-naturedly.

  "I only hope we shall not get aground," added Mrs. Belgrave.

  "We are fairly started now, and we have Lake Menzaleh on one side, and alow sandy plain, once covered with water, on the other," continued thecommander. "It is difficult to believe that the swamp and lagoon on thestarboard were once covered with fertile fields, watered by two of thebranches of the Nile, where wheat was raised in abundance, from whichRome and other countries were supplied with food."

  "What vast flocks of birds!" exclaimed Mrs. Woolridge.

  "Those are flamingoes, just rising from their resting-place," added thecaptain. "They were white just now as we looked at them; notice thecolor of the inside of their wings, which are of a rose-tinted pink."

  "But what became of the wheat-fields that were here?" asked Mrs.Blossom, after they had observed the wild birds for a time.

  "The sea broke in and covered the rich lands with sand and salt; andthere are towns buried there now."

  "Goodness, gracious!" almost screamed Mrs. Blossom. "There's anothersteamer sailing on the land!"

  "It appears to be so, but is not so," replied the commander.

  "It is really so," added Mrs. Woolridge; and all the party gazed withinterest at the phenomenon.

  "Only apparently so," the captain insisted.

  "Please to explain it to us, Commodore," said Miss Blanche, who had longago applied this title to him.

  "With pleasure, Miss Woolridge. It is the mirage, from the Latin_miror_, to wonder, which appears to be what you are doing just now. Thesteamer you see sailing along the shore is an optical illusion, areflection, and not a reality. Refraction, which is the bending of therays of light, produces this effect. If you look at a straight stick setup in the water, it will appear to be bent, and this is caused byrefraction. The learned gentlemen present will excuse me for going backto the primer of physics."

  "We are quite satisfied to have the memory refreshed," replied thedoctor.

  "The air around us is of different densities, which causes the rays ofreflection of our ship to be bent, sending the image up on the shore.What sailors call 'looming,' often seen on our own shores, is producedin the same way; and we often see an island, or a vessel, looming upaway above the water, from which it is sometimes separated by a strip ofsky. The mirage is often seen in the desert, with a whole caravan up inthe air, sometimes upside down.

  "An object is often seen when at a considerable distance from it. In theArctic regions ships below the horizon, or hull down as sailors phraseit, are revealed to other ships far distant by their images in the air.From Hastings, on the English Channel, the coast of France, fifty milesdistant, from Calais to Dieppe, was once seen for about three hours. In1854 a remarkable exhibition of the mirage was witnessed in the BalticSea from the deck of a ship of the British navy. The whole Englishfleet, consisting of nineteen sail, distant thirty miles from the pointof observation, were seen up in the air, upside down, as if they hadbeen hung up there by their keels.

  "The Fata Morgana is a sort of mirage seen in the Strait of Messina. Aperson standing on the shore sees the images of men, houses, ships, andother objects, sometimes in the air, sometimes in the water, theoriginals frequently magnified, passing like a panorama before thebeholder. The vapory masses above the strait may cause the pictures tobe surrounded by a colored line. When the peasants see it, they shout'Morgana! Morgana!'"

  "What does that word mean?" inquired Miss Blanche.

  "The French from which it is derived is '_Morgaine la Fee_,' from asister of King Arthur of the Round Table, who had the reputation ofbeing a fairy, which is _fata_ in Italian."

  "But what is that round table?" asked Mrs. Blossom very innocently.

  "You must excuse me, my dear woman," replied the commander, looking athis watch. "The Suez Canal is the subject before us, and I am talkingall the morning about other things."

  "But it is collateral information, called out by the mirage; and theillustrations you mentioned are quite new to me, for one," added Dr.Hawkes.

  "I like this kind of a conference, where the side matters are allexplained," said Mrs. Belgrave. "But it is a pity the boys are not here,for they are not getting any of the cream of this conference so early i
nthe morning."

  This was enough for the commander, coming from her; and he immediatelyhastened to the stern of the ship, where he hailed the Maud, and orderedher to come alongside. The four sailors who had attended the party inthe excursion to Cairo and up the Nile were directed to go on board ofthe tender, and take the places of the "Big Four." The Guardian-Motherhad to go into a "siding" to permit a steamer to pass her at this point,and the transfer was easily made.

  However it may have been with the others, Louis Belgrave was glad to getback to the ship, where he could sit by the side of Miss Blanche, andanswer the many questions she was continually asking; for she had aninquiring mind. As she often remarked, Louis always seemed to know allabout everything. Perhaps if he had been with the party all the time, hemight have lost some portion of his reputation as a walkingencyclopaedia; for when he was to be with her on any excursion, he tookextraordinary pains to post himself upon the topics likely to beconsidered.

  "You notice that post near the siding," said Captain Ringgold when theparty on the promenade had been re-enforced by the addition of the youngmen, and the steamer began to move again. "That is one of the fivekilometre posts; and you will find them all the way to the Red Sea."

  "What is a kilometre?" inquired Mrs. Woolridge.

  "I have talked so much that I will ask Mr. Belgrave to explain it,"replied the captain.

  "It belongs to the French metrical system, which most people have cometo believe is the best in the world. I suppose everybody here knows whata meridian is, for it was explained when we were talking about greatcircles and geographical or sea miles. A meridian is a great circlereaching around the earth, and passing through the equator and thepoles. A quadrant of a meridian is the quarter of a meridian, extendingfrom the equator to either pole. This is something that does not vary inextent. A commission of five learned men, especially in mathematics, wasappointed by the French Academy, at the instance of the government, toadopt a standard, and they made it a metre, which is the ten millionthpart of the quadrant of a meridian. The metre is 3.28 feet of ourmeasure, with five more decimal places after it.

  "Ten metres make a decametre, and one thousand metres make a kilometre,and ten thousand metres make a myriametre. Without bothering with allthese decimals, a kilometre is about five-eighths of a mile. Fivekilometres make three miles and one-tenth, which is the distance betweenthese posts," said Louis in conclusion.

  "How came you to be so ready with your explanation, Mr. Belgrave?" askedMiss Blanche, with a pleasant smile of approval.

  "Captain Scott had talked the whole thing to us on board of the Maudwhile he steered the steamer," replied Louis.

  "But he knows five times as much about metres as I do; for I could nothave explained the meridian business," interjected the captain of theMaud.

  "Five miles an hour is slow travelling; but it enables us to see thecountry, and also to talk about it," said Dr. Hawkes.

  "If you don't mean that I am talking too much, Doctor"--

  "I certainly do not mean that, and I hope you will keep it up,"interposed the surgeon.

  "Then I will say that the canal is run on the 'block system,' except onthe lakes, where the ships can go at full speed," added the commander.

  "Where are the blocks? I don't see any," said Mrs. Blossom.

  "They are all along the canal."

  "I don't know what is meant by the block system," added Mrs. Belgrave.

  "The railroads in England and the United States, or many of them, arerun by this method. The whole length of the road, or canal in this case,is divided into short sections. On the railroad no train is permitted toenter a section till all other trains are out of it, and a collision istherefore impossible. The system is controlled by telegraph, by whichsignals are ordered at either end of the division. On the canal thedirector at Port Tewfik controls the movements of every ship on itspassage either way. These posts mark the sections. You will learn moreof it when we get to the other end of the canal."

  The breakfast gong sounded at this time, and the party were not so eagerfor knowledge as to pass over the morning meal.